


And Our Time, And Our Blood

by skyline



Series: A Song You'll Regret [2]
Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Companion Piece, Love Triangles, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-07
Updated: 2011-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-14 04:57:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She whispers, so soft that she probably thinks James can’t hear it. “Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all.” Those are the words James learns to live by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Our Time, And Our Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sick_Banjo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sick_Banjo/gifts).



> I owe a million thanks to jblostfan16 for being my truly awesome beta on this. She listened to me gripe for over a month and calmed my nerves and basically been the most fantastic person on earth. This story would not have seen the light of day without her. Literally, because she's the one who was like SEQUEL/COMPANION/DO IT ALL.

“Our family is cursed, James,” his mother says, trailing her fingers through the tepid bathwater. Her crimson nails stir bubbles, ducklings, and battleships.  
  
“Cursed?” James stumbles over the word. He’s eight years old, and he doesn’t like to see his mom look so very sad.  
  
“Your father is leaving.”  
  
“I know,” James replies meekly, and he does. He’s known for months, ever since he first met the pretty girl with laughing eyes and glossy hair that has taken Brooke Diamond’s place in his father’s heart. He reaches out for a duck and a destroyer, pitting them against each other in a sea of rainbow foam. He tries to decide who would win while his mom strokes an idle hand over his wet hair.  
  
“We fall in love with people who leave. I thought I escaped it.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I was wrong.”  
  
“All of us?”  
  
“Your great-great grandmother and your great grandfather and my mother and…me,” his mom’s voice cracks a little. She looks like she wants to cry. When James cries, Logan kisses his knees and makes him feel better. But that usually only happens when he falls off his skateboard. His mom doesn’t even _own_ a skateboard, and James has no idea where to kiss.  
  
“It’ll be okay, mommy.”  
  
“Oh, baby boy.” His mom forces a smile. “I don’t want you to ever hurt like this.”  
  
“Maybe I won’t be cursed.”  
  
“I hope so, sweetie.”  
  
James shivers, drawing his knees to his chest. The duck and the destroyer float up and over his scrawny arms, out into the great wide open spaces of the bathtub. His mom picks up the battleship, tracing her fingers over the gray plastic. She whispers, so soft that she probably thinks James can’t hear it. “Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all.”  
  
Those are the words James learns to live by.

  
\---

  
The sunlight playing over the trees is turning the leaves different colors, green and gold and green-gold, and it’s all kind of pretty, like a painting.  
  
“We could be astronauts,” Logan says, pointing to the sky. His finger traces the outline of the sun, even though he isn’t actually looking at it. Logan has been James’s next door neighbor and best friend since they were tiny. He always does the things he’s told, and the two of them have been told many, many times by their teachers and their moms not to stare at the sun or they’ll go blind. James though, he’s bad at following directions. He looks straight at the thing, every single time, until dots dance behind his eyelids like flashing lights.  
  
It’s a good thing he stole a pair of his dad’s old wayfarers for this trip. With them perched on his nose, Logan can’t see that he’s staring and berate him about it. Logan lectures like someone’s mom.  
  
“Don’t you have to like science for that?” James asks, his palms flat against the warm surface of the big rock. They’re sitting in the middle of the lake, soaking wet and sick of squabbling over who’s going to be King of the Mountain. They both know they’re going to come up with a tie. Instead they’re talking about what they’re going to do when they grow up, which has always been one of their favorite games. James likes to imagine that he’s going to be a popstar or a ninja or James Bond, but now that they’re on the verge of the third grade, Logan’s gotten all serious business about life choices. He keeps saying that James Bond isn’t a real spy, which is really mean. James doesn’t go around bashing Logan’s dream career.  
  
“I do like science.”  
  
“I don’t,” James objects.  
  
“Do we have to do the same thing when we’re old? Maybe we could do different stuff.”  
  
“No.” On this point, James is adamant. “You promised, we’re always going to be together.”  
  
“I know, but like-“ Logan huffs, his tiny little ribs puffing out and then in. He’s so scrawny. James is already as big as some of the middle school kids, but Logan still looks like he’s in kindergarten. “Couldn’t we still be together if you’re singing and I’m a, I don’t know. A doctor?”  
  
“You want to be a doctor now?” James tilts the shades down his nose, peering over the top of them with as much skepticism as he can muster. “Blood makes you puke.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“You shut up,” James shoves Logan lightly, careful not to send him careening off the rock. Their moms might make them go back home if they fight too much, and James isn’t ready to leave the lake yet. He leans back against smooth stone, and with a loud, pained noise, Logan pillows his head against James’s side.  
  
His hair is soft against James’s skin. James runs his fingers through it, relishing the way Logan shivers into his touch like a bunny rabbit getting petted. In the sunlight, every strand of brown shines golden and ruby red between James’s fingers; highlights like precious metals. The rock feels good against his skin, like oven-warm tortillas, and he can hear their mothers laughing off on their rafts, sweeping around the lazy currents of the lake. James kicks his feet in the water, just to listen to the splash.  
  
“Stop moving,” Logan murmurs, his lips a butterfly flutter over James’s skin.  
  
“Okay,” he says. Even though he’s looking away, he can still see his best friend’s image in the reflection of his stolen shades, like an old Kodak snapshot. He smiles, letting the sun soak into his skin.  
  
This summer is perfect. James wants the rest of his life to be just like this; one long, lazy day of Logan after another. And soon, he’ll be famous, and Logan will be at his side, taking care of his sniffles or whatever, and it won’t just be this tiny little rock.  
  
They’ll rule the world, just like they’ve always planned.  
 

\---

  
It’s this freaky little scene of domesticity, a bright, loud parody of the way his mom and dad used to have silent exchanges over coffee and the newspaper. Stepmommy dearest forces James’s dad down into his seat, shoving a plateful of eggs and bacon up in front of his face.  
  
James waits for his dad to start lecturing about how his body is a temple and do you even know how much Trans Fat there is in a strip of bacon? But instead he shoves a piece in his mouth and smiles all soft and fond up at the witch.  
  
It isn’t right.  
  
Nothing about this is right. James loves his dad, and the stepwitch is fine for someone who just graduated high school like, a day ago, but there is a big, glaring error here. James thinks about his mom the morning before, clutching a cup of cold coffee while she absently tapped her nails against the table.  
  
No one made her eggs.  
  
No one smiled at her except for James.  
  
He’s only nine, but he knows it’s not fair that his mom is getting shafted when his dad’s the one that cheated. She loved him, and he left her for a teenage girl. James may not be old enough to understand the mechanics of a relationship, but he understands that his dad probably isn’t in love with his perky little wife.  
  
James isn’t sure that his dad is in love with anyone outside of his own reflection.  
  
All his life, he’s been taught that it’s wrong to cheat and lie and deceive. But if that’s true? Then why is his dad the perfect picture of happiness while his mom spends her nights crying into her pillow?  
  
There’s a lesson to be learned here.  
 

\---

   
Less than a month after summer ends, James meets Kendall.  
  
Logan’s the one who finds him first, on the playground at their school. He coerces Kendall and his spastic little friend, Carlos, to eat lunch with the two of them. The kid convinces James in seconds flat to come out for the school hockey team. It doesn’t take much; James’s dad was varsity before he graduated high school and went into music. Everyone says that he was good enough to have gone pro. He’s taught James everything he knows. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, James thinks that trying out for the team is a thing that will make his dad proud.  
  
He forces Logan to come along for the ride. Now they’re standing on the side of the rink, about to see if they’ll make the team for real or if they’ll just be those dorks that the team keeps around because they’re still too young for exclusivity to have set in. James stares at his breath puffing like steam in the air and decides he isn’t nervous. Not even a little bit.  
  
Except he maybe sort of is. His skates keep quaking over the surface of the ice, like he didn’t grow up rink side. It’s only Logan’s presence behind him, familiar and comforting, that stills his trembling fingers when they close around the stick.  
  
Of course they make the team, and of course he feels silly for being nervous.  
  
Kendall skates over to them afterwards, all smiles and celebrations. “You guys rocked. Want to come to my house to celebrate? We’ve got pie.”  
  
James’s eyes light up. He really loves pie.  
  
“Can’t,” Logan says, and James frowns at him. “What? It’s my grandma’s birthday.”  
  
Oh. Yeah. His grandma. James’s grandparents are all dead, and even though it’s stupid, he kind of wishes that Logan’s were too. He’s always running off to visit his grandma, three towns over in a nursing home. James doesn’t actually want the lady to like, _die_ , but he doesn’t get why Logan has to visit her so much. She’s old. It’s not like she can actually do stuff.  
  
James isn’t sure what it is old people get up to in their free time, but it probably has something to do with talking really, really loud about jam. Bo _ring_.  
  
“Bummer,” Kendall says. He turns to James. “What about you?”  
  
“Uh, I don’t-“  
  
“Go,” Logan kicks him in the shin, the side of his blade nearly nicking through James’s pants. As it is, he can feel the impact like a bruise.  
Ow.  
  
“But I’m supposed to go home with your mom-“  
  
“Go. She knows Mrs. Knight. She’ll be cool with it.” Neither of them say what they’re thinking, which is that James’s mom won’t care either way. James is her world, but so is the fast paced cosmetic market, and as a result she’s not around much. If James goes home right now, it will be to an empty house and a microwavable dinner. His neighbor will pop in every ten minutes to make sure James hasn’t burned anything down, and that will basically be the most exciting part of his night.  
  
Logan hates the idea of James home alone. He’s told James so a whole bunch of times.  
  
“Are you sure it’s okay?” James asks Kendall, tentative, because their friendship barely even exists yet.  
  
“’Course.” Kendall grins. He grabs his duffel bag and walks with James out to his mom’s car. Mrs. Knight looks surprised to see James, but she doesn’t seem to mind his presence. At least not until James is buckled into the back seat of her sedan and Kendall says, “Hey mom, James and I want to go to the park.”  
  
This is news to James, but he likes the park. Whatever.  
  
“Not tonight, Kendall.” Mrs. Knight grips the steering wheel tight in her hands. James can tell by the way her knuckles go all white.  
  
“What? Just for a couple of hours. Come on.”  
  
“Not tonight,” Mrs. Knight repeats, her brow creasing. “Not until your father comes home.”  
  
“Dad’s not coming home,” Kendall bites out. James can see his profile in the passenger seat, and he’s struck by how very unfamiliar this kid is; golden one minute, shadowed by dusk in the next.  
  
“He’s due at the airport in an hour. Honey, of course he’s going to come and see you and Katie-“  
  
“Stop lying!” Kendall actually _shouts_ , and James is surprised by his new friend’s sudden anger. He doesn’t get what’s going on here, but he recognizes it, somehow. He recognizes what it’s like to be really, really mad at your dad.  
  
James doesn’t understand all of Kendall’s anger until they’re up in his living room, jabbing at the keys on his Playstation. Mrs. Knight is rattling around in the kitchen, cooking something that smells like it’s burning when James works up the nerve to ask, “Your dad’s in the army?”  
  
He saw a couple of ribbons around the house in glass frames, and he’s pretty sure he’s seen soldiers wear them on TV.  
  
“He’s a marine,” Kendall says, eyes focused on the TV, but there’s a hint of pride creeping into his voice. “One of the best. When I grow up, I’m going to be just like him.”  
  
“I thought you wanted to be a hockey player.”  
  
“That’s my fallback plan, for when I come home. Can’t be in the service forever, right?”  
  
James doesn’t know anything at all about the military, so he nods.  
  
“He’s not coming home, though,” Kendall insists, actually breaking from the game to glare up at James, like he’s daring him to challenge the idea. “He’s dating some bitch he met on leave last time. Mom just doesn’t get it.”  
  
James doesn’t get what the word bitch means, but he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by asking. He jabs his fingers into the plastic controller and watches Mario jump onto a pile of bricks. James can feel Kendall’s eyes on him for a minute, watching him for some kind of reaction that James just doesn’t know how to give. Later, he’ll realize that Kendall is waiting for James to yell at him. In their town, good boys are only ever supposed to have _good_ thoughts about their dads.  But the thing is, James hasn’t been a good boy for a long, long time. He still has words, tucked in the back of his head, even when he lies on sun-heated rocks with Logan or sits through lessons at school or even now, playing Mario Kart with Kendall.  
  
 _Maybe it’s better not to love at all._  
 

\---

  
James has this idea of his dream house.  
  
It’s a rock mansion, a virtual mancave of cool shit. But in his head, it’s also _home_. It’s a place that belongs to him and whoever it is that he’ll one day spend the rest of his life with, if he can beat the curse. He’s got every room mapped out, an entire blueprint in his head that he walks through whenever he’s feeling down.  
  
He tells Logan about it, once, when they’re eleven.  
  
“Is there going to be a guest room for me?” Is Logan’s first question.  
  
“Of course,” James replies, because he’s already plotted out where everyone’s going to sleep. Kendall and Carlos will have their own rooms too, but Logan’s will be right next door to James’s. James isn’t sure why, but he feels more comfortable with Logan nearby.  
  
He needs him to make the dream complete.  
  
When James tells Logan that, his face turns kind of red.  
 

\---

  
   
Kendall says, “My dad is coming home.”  
  
Kendall means _I need you_. He’s too young to have to deal with the burden of disappointment, the guilt and the pressure that comes from balancing his parents failed relationship, even if it is amicable. His heart is a stone, and he is suffocating beneath the weight of it pressing the air from his lungs. James can see the panic in his eyes.  
  
He follows Kendall back to his house to play video games or build forts or distract him however he can.  
  
He’s not sure if he can ever be enough to lessen the weight, but he sure as hell is going to try.  
 

\---

  
   
“You’re shallow and stupid and your glasses are _dumb_!” the girl shouts, throwing her smoothie in James’s face. She proceeds to make an impressive show of marching away, all foot stomping and hair flouncing.  
  
“What was that all about?” Logan asks, mirth dancing in his eyes. They’re thirteen, and Logan knows absolutely nothing at all about dating girls.  
  
“The curse,” James mumbles, cross. He really liked that girl, but they’d been hanging out for a couple of months. It was time to end it, before she walked away.  
  
“The what now?”  
  
“Nothing,” James says dismissively. Logan has enough to say about his mom.  
  
“Okay. So, we’re studying?”  
  
“We’re studying,” James confirms, even though studying is the last thing he wants to do. He promised his mom that if he fails a single subject this year, he’ll drop hockey. That is not even close to an option. He slings his arm around Logan’s shoulders, walking alongside him all the way back to his house. Once there, Logan curls onto James’s bed. James sits at his desk, watching while Logan breaks out a math text. The next thing James knows he’s bopping around in his seat, earbuds in. It might actually be the cutest thing James has ever seen in his life.  
  
He grins and tries to focus on his essay. He’s supposed to be writing a paper on the military, but every time he sets his pen to paper, all he can think about is Kendall’s dad. As his friendship with Kendall grows and stretches, he’s started to get it; how, for most people, wars are make-believe.  
  
People see images on the news, clips of explosions and death and insurgents and they shake their heads. They say _what a shame_. Then they go back to stuffing their face with fast food and driving their SUVs; the ones with stickers on the back that give you a stick figure body count of their family unit. Which is perfect pre-reconnaissance for a serial killer, if you think about it. Not the point. James blinks, trying to focus. War, and how the distance between it and real life makes it feel like pretend. That’s what Kendall lives with, every day.  
  
They’ve been friends for nearly four years, and Mr. Knight has been stationed overseas for almost the whole time. It’s sad.  
  
Sadness makes it hard to concentrate.  
  
“I’m stupid and I’m going to fail,” James declares, shoving his homework off of his desk in a dramatic fit. Or, at least, it’s supposed to be dramatic. Logan barely bats an eye. James decides it’s because he can’t hear him. He repeats himself. Loudly.    
  
Logan yanks out an earbud and rolls his eyes. “You’re not stupid. Stop looking at me like that, you’re _not_. You just don’t learn the same way I do."  
  
“I’m going to fail,” James reiterates, even though Logan’s faith in him feels warm, like something in his chest is melting. Logan scrambles up from the bed and leans over James’s shoulder, scanning the essay.  
  
“You’re not. I promise. I won’t let you,” Logan tells him, running his fingers over James’s knuckles reassuringly. James wants to hug him, but in that moment he thinks, _our family is cursed_.  
  
It’s the weirdest idea.  
  
He bats it away like a fly.  
  
James tries to show Logan the places he’s stuck, and Logan listens, eyes lit with intelligence. James is kind of in awe; the kid’s got a whole universe going on in his brain. Things James will probably never really understand. He listens to Logan’s lecture for a bit. Normally, James doesn’t really care about much outside the realm of his mirror and men’s magazines, but something about Logan’s geek voice catches him. Maybe it’s the comfort and familiarity of a sound that he’s known since before he can remember, or maybe it’s just that Logan’s squeaky little voice is kind of- adorable. James tastes the word.  
  
He’s never really been a stuffed animals kind of kid, except for Princess Sparkly Buttercup, his favorite purple unicorn, but- maybe that’s because he never needed a stuffed animal when he had Logan right in front of him.  
  
James bats that thought away too. Obviously all this learning is turning his brain to mush.  
  
“Work is boring. Let’s do something different.” He makes a play for the remote sitting on top of his dresser before Logan can object, turning the TV on. He switches to MTV almost immediately, upping the volume when a video he likes comes on.  
  
James leaps to his feet, letting Logan take over the chair he vacated.  
  
And then he dances.  
  
Logan laughs, watching as James shimmies his hips in a truly horrendous approximation of the singer on the screen. “Dude, stop. You’re going to break something.”  
  
James glances between the nearest lamp and his hockey trophies, lining a bookshelf, confused.  
  
“In your body,” Logan clarifies, howling with laughter.  
  
“Please,” James says, self-assured. “I am a professional.”  
  
He turns his dance into something like a mock striptease, something he saw on HBO one evening when his mom was out too late. Again.  
Logan’s shoulders cease their quivering, and he is watching James’s hips like they’re hypnotic. “Professional. Right.”  
  
“You doubt me?” James demands, his voice haughty and impetuous.  
  
“No, sir,” Logan mocks. But then something in his expression changes, and he asks, “Do you do this for girls?”  
  
“Do what?”  
  
He’s still moving, still swaying, and Logan reaches out, a palm flat against his sides. James can feel the warmth of his hands through the denim of his jeans. Logan has always been so small, but the older they get, the bigger his hands have grown. He’s got a pretty good grip on James’s hips. He quirks an eyebrow and clarifies, “Dance?”  
  
James cocks his head to the side and thinks. It takes him a little bit, but the answer is, “Nope.”  
  
“You only dance for me?”  
  
The truth is, James is too embarrassed to dance for anyone else. He’s been working on his popstar moves in the privacy of his own home, but right now Logan is the only one he trusts enough to show off for.  
  
He won’t tell him that, though. Instead he breaks free of Logan’s grip and shakes back and forth, doing his ridiculous dance again. He grabs Logan by the hand, pulling him to his feet and forcing him into the routine. It doesn’t take much to break his best friend’s solemnity.  
  
For a genius, Logan moves like he was made to do it.  
  
Maybe doctoring isn’t his only calling.  
 

\---

   
It’s the worst blizzard they’ve had in years. Snow coats everything in this thick, wet layer that feels like powder on James’s skin, but slips like slush beneath his boots. The only thing keeping him from slipping is that the snow’s already built up high enough that he can braces his knees against it on each and every step. Which makes walking kind of hard, but whatever. They’re almost there.  
  
Logan is at his grandmother’s, again, and James is walking Kendall home from school. It’s gotten to be a kind of tradition of theirs. James doesn’t have any reason to be home, and Kendall doesn’t do so well with the whole being alone thing. Mrs. Knight has started taking later shifts at the diner to make ends meet, and Katie’s got an after school program. Kendall hides the loneliness well, but James can see right through his poker face. He is a professional actor.  
  
Or, he’s hoping to be. He started drama this year, and he’s trying to land a part in the spring play. Even if it’s not a big role, it’s sure to look good on James’s acting resume.  
  
James rubs his hands together, fingerless gloves doing little to keep him warm, but man, he is the most stylish dude in Minnesota. He’s a freshman in high school now. His image is important.  
  
Which is why he’s kind of pissed when Kendall shoves him face first into the snow.  
  
“Dude,” he yells, anger leaping into his chest. He can feel ice slide down his cheeks, puddle in the hollow above his lip and the curve of his nose. Kendall is laughing his ass off, arm clutched to the middle of his stomach, smile brighter than anything else in their snow-sodden world.  
  
He’s such a dick.  
  
James finds his footing and takes a flying leap, tackling Kendall straight down into a snow bank.  
  
“Hey!” Kendall yelps, breath whooshing out of his chest in a hot burst onto James’s neck. James pays him no mind. Revenge is sweet.  
  
They wrestle around for a bit, flailing arms and legs until the ice soaks through their jeans and James is pretty sure he’s bruised a rib.  
That’s okay. Kendall’s eye is starting to blacken from an accidental-on-purpose elbow to his face.  
  
They practically run the rest of the way to Kendall’s house, but when they get there, they don’t go inside. They sit on the stoop, red faced and winded; smiling like it’s going out of style.  
  
“Asshole,” James mutters without any venom.  
  
“Brat,” Kendall counters. His green eyes are sparkling. “James?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I’m- um.” Kendall stumbles over his words, and it’s cute, because Kendall doesn’t stumble over much. “I’m glad we’re friends.”  
  
“Me too, dude.”  
  
“Yeah, but. I’m- really glad, okay? Before I met you guys, I never had anyone.”  
  
“You had Carlos,” James objects.  
  
“I met Carlos like, two months before you and Logan.” Kendall laughs. “All three of you- it was like I wished for you and fate made it happen.”  
  
James can’t tell if Kendall is blushing beneath the bright red, sweaty sheen of exertion, but he probably is. They’re not really the kind of guys who go in for the deep emotional crap. But he doesn’t mind.  
  
Sometimes he feels like Kendall and Carlos and Logan were tailor-made for him too.  
  
He reaches out and squeezes Kendall’s hand. Then he says, “You owe me a cup of hot chocolate. With _huge_ marshmallows.”  
  
“I can do that.” Kendall beams, shaking the snow off his hair like a wet dog. He helps James up to his feet and for the rest of the night, neither of them can shake their smiles.  
  
Life isn’t perfect, but it’s close.  
 

\---

   
Logan is sad.  
  
He looks so tiny in his little black suit. Logan is small in all the places that James has grown strong and broad, but he’s not scrawny. He’s built like a hockey player, same as the rest of them. His muscle is wiry and hard and his skin is as familiar as James’s own from a million days spent touching and wrestling and tackling and tickling and dancing and just plain being together. He’s not ever supposed to look tiny.  
  
James wants to hold him close to his body and never, ever let him go. Thing is, that probably won’t help. Logan was close to his grandma. So close that James has resented the woman more than once for stealing Logan’s time away from him. He feels bad about it now, because she’s dead, and because he’d give up countless hours with Logan just to wipe that expression off of his face.   
  
He doesn’t know what to do, and he doesn’t like feeling so helpless. He, Kendall, and Carlos stage a sleepover at Logan’s house the night of the funeral, but it hasn’t boosted anybody’s mood. Logan said that he’d come up to sleep when he was ready, but it’s well past midnight, and his bed sits cold and empty. James knows because he’s curled up in the sheets, alone. A storm is raging over their small town, and  
James has been listening to the steady drumbeat of the rain for hours now. It sounds like the sky is sobbing. Each drop of rain is like an amplified gunshot. It’s loud, sloppy weather that suits James’s mood.  
  
Kendall and Carlos are laid out in sleeping bags on the floor, completely unbothered by Logan’s absence. Heartless bastards. Carlos makes this little snuffling noise in his sleep, and every once in a while Kendall will mumble nonsense words. The two of them are driving James insane.  
  
He watches the silhouette of the hall nightlight frame the door for close to fifteen minutes before he actually gets up, deciding he’s had enough of this whole waiting gig. James needs to find out if Logan’s okay. He shucks the comforter, trying to avoid stepping on Carlos’s face as he makes his way out the door.  
  
Logan’s in the kitchen with no lights on. He’s standing in front of the window, still dressed in the suit that swamps him. He is swimming in black, in grief. James hates it.  
  
“Dude. Are you ever coming to sleep?”  
  
“Can’t,” Logan says, staring dully at the rain out the window. It slaps against the windows like it wants inside the house.  
  
“Why not?” James demands, crossing his arms. He sounds petulant. He doesn’t mean to. It’s just so late, and the tile beneath his feet is cold. He wants to sleep, and he wants Logan asleep beside him so that he can know he’s safe and warm and maybe not _happy_ , but definitely not crying his way through the night. How is James supposed to take care of him when Logan won’t even come up to his room and let James hug him?  
  
“I just _can’t,_ okay?”  
  
Logan makes this noise that’s halfway between a choke and a sob. The sound of it pierces James’s ear drums, sharp like a shard of glass in his chest, and he’s never done well with sadness. All he wants is to make the keening cry stop, and he stumbles forward, thinking that he’s going to cover Logan’s mouth with his hand. He’ll murmur comforting things, wordless things, like a song with no lyrics until  
Logan quiets. That’s the plan.  
  
Except James’s body doesn’t seem to really comprehend the finer details of the plan, because he’s got Logan pinned against his own kitchen counter, sandstone colored marble pressed into the edge of Logan’s ass and oh yeah, he’s _kissing_ him.  
  
Logan tastes salty, like tears and grief and the peanuts he ate at the reception. Which isn’t the point, because the point is James is kissing him and what the fuck is he doing? He waits for Logan to shove him away, slowing the kiss down until it’s nothing more than a soft brush of their lips and their shared exhalations, but Logan doesn’t do anything more than wind his fingers in the hem of James’s Ramones T-shirt, the one he stole from his dad to sleep in. He’s kissing James back, hesitant, clumsy.  
  
Most of Logan’s experience with girls is a direct result of the dates that James set him up on, and the kid may be a fast learner, but he obviously hasn’t picked up much. Secure in the knowledge that he’s not about to get his head smashed into the refrigerator, James takes over the kiss, coaxing Logan’s mouth open with his lips and then his tongue until he’s got him panting, tongue slick and pliant against James’s. That’s okay for a little bit, but before long James can’t help kissing him harder, deeper, and Logan makes this noise and it’s nothing at all like grief.  
  
It makes James’s hips twitch forward until he’s pressed up to Logan, whose entire body is scorching heat compared to the freezing cold kitchen. He’s hard. James can feel the shape of his cock through his dress slacks, against the thickness filling his own pajama pants. Logan doesn’t miss a beat, striving to recreate the spark of friction that ignited between their dicks, rutting forward until he’s rubbing up against James like he’s forgotten how to do anything else.  
  
James groans and wraps his arms around Logan’s waist, lifting him up so that he’s actually sitting on the countertop. He rocks forward into the space he’s created between Logan’s legs, thighs tight at his hips and _fuck_ , that is so much better.  
  
Logan obviously agrees. He’s the one who makes the first move for something more, his fingers fisted in the bottom of James’s shirt deftly  
yanking it up until it’s rucked into the spaces between his armpits. James obediently lifts his arms, letting Logan pull it up and over his head. For a second James stands there, Logan staring at him as he shivers, half naked. James can’t figure out what’s going on inside of his head, and while it’s not exactly a first to wonder what the hell Logan’s genius brain is thinking, it’s disconcerting to do it like this, when there’s actually something to lose. He can’t take the staring or the wondering, so he steps back into the hollow between Logan’s legs. He untucks Logan’s shirt and carefully undoes the buttons, giving him time to back out.  
  
Logan doesn’t seem interested in running back up to his bedroom and hiding underneath the covers, too focused on the way James moves from the shirt to fumbling open the buckle of his dress pants.  
  
“Don’t be sad,” James pleads, but it sounds like an order.  
  
Logan’s gaze snaps up to him, glare turning sharp as broken glass, eyes watering. “You don’t get to dictate my grief.”  
  
“Don’t be sad,” James repeats, undoing the zipper of his slacks. He reaches inside the opening of Logan’s boxers, palming a hand over his cock.  
  
It ends the discussion.  
  
This sound like a mewl rips from Logan’s throat, raw edged and sexy. He lifts his butt off the counter, letting James slide his pants and boxers off in one easy movement, and then he’s sitting there, naked except for his unbuttoned, wrinkled white shirt.  
  
He looks scared, but he is no longer small or vulnerable. Lust makes Logan look bigger than he is, like a feral animal of a boy instead of James’s nerdy best friend.  
  
James slides the shirt off of Logan’s shoulders, kissing his neck and circling his fingers around his dick until the tension eases from Logan’s thin shoulders. He is building up a rhythm, his mouth sucking a mark into Logan’s throat, his hand moving in an up down pattern that’s almost familiar from his own nights beneath the covers of his bed.  
  
The whole thing is shattered when Logan reaches forward and skims his fingers over James’s cock. James has to stop everything that he’s doing, his inhalation sharp and completely unhelpful, because it’s impossible to get air in his lungs when Logan is touching him like that. The feather light brush of his fingers turns into a tight, hot circle of heat as Logan tries pumping light over the shaft. James thinks he might actually die from the contact. He presses forward, kissing Logan long and deep, until neither of their hands are doing much, but their dicks are pressing together, fever hot and unbearable friction.  
  
James doesn’t have a single clue what he’s doing, and he has no idea where this is going. He’s got a vague idea of how gay sex works, gleaned from health class and crude locker room taunting, but it’s not like he’s ever done research on it or anything. He’s never given any thought to banging a boy, not until now, with Logan willing and eager against him. That doesn’t seem to matter to Logan, whose silhouette is backlit by a flash of lightning in the sky when he mumbles, “D’you wanna-“  
  
“Yes,” James gasps, because whether the end of that question is _fuck_ or just plain _cum from a handjob_ _alone_ , James wants it. He nearly passes out when he finds out it’s the former, when Logan, still rocking against him in slow, electric undulations takes one of James’s hands and presses it up against his ass, like he expects him to- oh. _Oh_.  
  
He tries to push in a finger dry, but the action makes Logan flinch, his face contorting with pain. James immediately withdraws, certain that he’s fucked up, but Logan pants, “I think it has to be wet.” James doesn’t even bother asking how he knows that. Logan takes like, college level biology. He knows his shit.  
  
James’s first thought is to turn on the sink, but he thinks about how water feels on his dick when he jacks himself off in the shower before school. It’s never as good as lube, or- James sticks his fingers in his own mouth, not caring that his index finger has already dipped inside his best friend’s ass. He lathers each digit in turn with his tongue, coating them with saliva until they’re as wet as he can possibly get them.  
Logan watches him, eyes dark and wanting. James has this stray thought that oh, this is what desire looks like on Logan’s face. It’s pretty intense.  
  
He goes slow this time around, testing what Logan will tolerate and what makes his face scrunch with discomfort. Once he’s got his index finger pressed in all the way to the knuckle, he tries wiggling it around, trying to figure out his next move. It can’t be too different from fingering a girl, can it? James crooks his finger this way and that, and it _is_ actually different from girls.  
  
It doesn’t seem to be doing much for Logan other than making him uncomfortable until James curls the tip of it against- something.  
Logan’s face goes completely blissed out, surprise and pleasure blossoming over his features and okay. James tries to recreate whatever it is he just did. It takes a couple of attempts, but Logan’s pretty helpful about it, rocking down against him in this way that it is at once shy and fervent. James works another finger inside of him, figuring he’ll get the angle right if he has more digits to work with, and even though  
Logan winces against the stretch, his expression almost instantly transforms to shock and pleasure. He actually yelps James’s name, hands clenching hard at his shoulders.  
  
James tries out a couple of things, scissoring his fingers apart and twisting them together, different movements and sensations that make Logan writhe against him. He uses his free hand to pump against Logan’s dick, and that must really feel good, because Logan starts babbling incomprehensibly, and in between the nonsense words James catches his name, _do it_ , and _fuck me_. Logan’s actually begging for it. James has to catch his breath again.  
  
He’s never done this before. Not just with a dude. With anyone. He’s had girls ask him for it more than once, but it’s always seemed like this thing that he would deal with when he had to. No Big Deal. He never expected the moment would come in Logan’s dark kitchen, when the sky has cracked open, and his hands are shaking so much that he thinks something must be wrong.  
  
It is a big deal.  
  
It’s _Logan_.  
  
The storm outside rages like it’s trying to tear apart the house, and every time lightning brightens the sky Logan flinches as though he’s been hit. James has never been so scared in his entire life. He doesn’t want to hurt Logan.  
  
He doesn’t ever, ever want to hurt him.  
  
Logan’s pupils are huge, his irises darker than James has ever seen them. His breath is coming out ragged, like he’s run miles and miles just to reach this place, just to have James’s hands on his body. He says, “ _James_ ,” and his voice is foreign. It sends shivers up James’s spine.  
  
He uses a third finger to shut Logan up, at the same time licking his own palm until it’s slick enough that he can slide a thin coat of saliva over his own dick. He is ridiculously turned on. James presses Logan back until his head and his neck are resting against the kitchen wall, pulling his hips forward so that he’s not actually sitting on the marble anymore. Most of his weight is resting on James, and yeah, he’s a hockey player, he can take it, but it doesn’t make it any less awkward. He toys with the idea of throwing Logan over his shoulder and taking him on the dining room table, or better yet, the couch, but this tiny, fragmented part of his brain says that if they change the locale, Logan might change his mind. There’s something like magic in the kitchen, transformed by shadows and the raging of the storm, the shudder of thunder and the thrill of lightning.  
  
James shifts Logan’s weight, lining up the head of his cock against his asshole, focusing on the places where Logan’s hands are gripping the side of the sink and James’s arm so tightly that his knuckles are white. James’s arm kind of hurts, but it’s a dull kind of ache compared to the warmth of Logan’s ass against the slit of his dick.  
  
And then he pushes in.  
  
Logan squeezes around him so tight that it’s actually painful, and James winces. He stills his hips.  
  
“You have to relax, man.” He kisses the line of Logan’s jaw and says softly, “Relax.”  
  
Logan grunts and captures his lips, pulling James into a kiss that is wet and slick and dirty. Their tongues slide together without any rhythm, but it feels so fucking amazing that James can’t help thrusting forward a little.  
  
Logan gasps into his mouth, and James immediately tries to pull back, hard as hell, but still so scared that he’s going to hurt his best friend. Logan stops him with a sharp, “ _No_.”  
  
He pulls insistently at James’s chin, kissing him, not seeming to mind the awkward angle or the way that he’s got the head of James’s dick hot inside of him. Every time the kiss gets deeper, it’s like Logan opens up a little, and they go like that, centimeter by centimeter, until  
James is fucking deeper inside of his best friend than he ever thought he could.  
  
Experimentally, James tries pulling back. Logan keens high in his throat, clawing at him, trying to get him back, and James pushes forward. They do it like that, inches in and inches out until it’s almost rhythmic, and the slide of it is easier. James strokes a hand over Logan’s cock, trying to make it good for him too. That seems to help.  
  
“James,” Logan whimpers each time James pulls out farther and pushes in deeper, until it’s like electric building along the hair of his arms.  
  
It’s James’s first time, and it has to be Logan’s too (it _has to be_ ). Neither of them last very long. Logan comes with a gasp so quiet that James nearly misses it. He does not miss the way Logan stripes white across his stomach and hand in hot, short bursts as James keeps pumping his dick inside of him. He can’t stop, not even if he wanted to. Thunder shakes the kitchen, but it is not as important as the way Logan is trembling around him, prying his own orgasm from his grasp. He shudders long and hard, blissed out from the pleasure of it, from the places where Logan’s skin touches his.  
  
He doesn’t want to let him go. Logan is a miracle, love and beauty and stardust wrapped up in one perfect package of a boy. And he’s watching James like maybe he is too, like he is lightning and thunder and something earth-shaking. James sags against his body, bringing his arms around Logan and tugging him as close as he can, given the angle. There is a big awkward space between their chests, but to close it James would have to withdraw his softening, oversensitized dick, and he’s not ready for that yet. He presses a kiss to Logan’s forehead, and Logan shifts, ass squeezing. In a distant way James begins thinking that it will only take him a minute to get hard again, and then they could do that again and again and again until Logan is wrecked.  
  
James likes the idea of wrecking his best friend, of turning him pliant and malleable and gorgeous beneath his fingers. He wants to make Logan pant his name, to say it exactly the same way he had when James first pushed into him.  
  
Logan, apparently, has different plans. Carefully, he pries himself away from James, until James can no longer feel the heat of his ass or his chest or his breath.  
  
He distances their bodies and stutters out something that sounds like _goodnight_.  
  
James wonders if this is what the curse is; being left cold and alone and half in love in the middle of a night by a boy that he never thought would abandon him. He hears his mom’s words like a whisper in his ear.  
  
 _We fall in love with people who leave._  
  
The next morning, James watches Logan across the breakfast table and wants to kiss him. But Logan won’t even look him in the eye.  
  
He meets Kendall’s gaze.  
  
He has no trouble glancing in Carlos’s direction.  
  
It’s only James that isn’t worthy of his attention.   
  
James understands, instinctively, that they are not supposed to talk about this thing that they did. So James doesn’t bring it up. Mentally, he pictures his imaginary rockstar mansion. He shuffles Logan down a few rooms. Out loud, James chatters on about hockey and some random scientific fact about elephants that he picked up from the magazines Logan hides under his bed instead of porn, and a whole slew of gossip about who’s dating who in Hollywood until Logan is willing to just look at him again. And once he does, James tries to keep the things that he feels from leaping to his throat. He keeps the words he wants to say from spilling out onto the breakfast table, uncivil like. He wills himself to wall off his heart, brick by brick, because this is what a curse feels like.  
  
If he opens himself up to the things that he feels, Logan will leave.  
  
Sex wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, but James secretly thinks it’s a tragic way to lose his virginity; one second he realizes he’s in love and the next, he realizes he can never actually have this boy again. After all, Logan leaving is the one thing that James can never, ever allow to happen.  
 

\---

   
James has sex with girls. Well, first he tries to build a relationship with them out of a mutual appreciation for making out, and that doesn’t work. But James can sure as hell try, and he does, often. Making out eventually turns into to hooking up, and he likes that.  
  
It’s never quite right, though. It’s just not the same.  
  
He tries fucking a boy, hot and hard behind the bleachers at school. There are no storms. There is no lightning.  
  
No one can replicate the way that Logan said James’s name. It’s a gasp in the back of his head every time he gets off. James thinks that the only way to quiet the voice so deeply ingrained in his memory is to replace it with many, many, many others. So he takes what he can.  
He bangs a string of boys and girls until sex becomes as familiar and simple as breathing.  
  
He embraces his reputation. He’s always had it, but it’s never been true until now. It’s easier to be the filthy hot mess that everyone expects him to be than to make an attempt at normalcy. What even is normal? James isn’t sure, and he doesn’t really care. He familiarizes himself with the name-calling and the condescension that comes with being a player. James has heard all the words. Slut. Whore. He’s been called a homewrecker more than once. He doesn’t take offense to any of it. He learns to let insults bounce off of his skin. Isn’t this what being young is about? Having fun?  
  
There are days where guilt sticks to his insides like moss. The idea that he’s doing something _wrong_ slides through his mind, leaving a slimy slug trail. But James refuses to allow anything to stop him from living.  
  
Even his conscience.   
 

\---

 

“Where’s your dad?” James asks, plopping down beside Kendall at the kitchen counter. “Isn’t he supposed to be back from the-“

“Fuck the marines,” Kendall says resolutely. “Fuck them and fuck my dad.”

His eyes are steel.

James knew something was wrong the second that Kendall asked him to come home today, of all days. His dad was supposed to be making one of his triumphant returns, but instead it looks like he’s left Kendall with an empty door frame. Again.

“Dude.” James squeezes his shoulder. He doesn’t know what to say.

He never seems to know the right thing to say.

Kendall buries his face in his arms, and James can see exhaustion in every line of his body, in the muscles that make up his shoulders and arms. He is defeated, and that’s not a state of being that James is used to seeing Kendall in.

“I worry about him all the time,” Kendall mumbles into the table, the hard wood bouncing the words up out of the crevices between his face and his arms. “I shouldn’t worry about him, because he left us, but- all the time.” His voice cracks. It’s still full of steel, but there is also pain.

James isn’t sure why he does it. It’s stupid.

Maybe it’s the kitchen counter.

Maybe he’s just horny. It’s been a year since Logan, and half a month since the last girl he fucked.

Maybe it’s that he best knows how to fix things with his hands and his mouth and his body, because they are the only tools he’s ever had to use.

Maybe it’s a combination of all of those things, but James wants to see if he can melt all the metal behind Kendall’s gaze. He reaches out, stroking a finger down the side of Kendall’s face. Kendall leans into it, and for a moment it’s this thing that stretches electric between them.

Then Kendall snaps, “What are you doing?”

It’s like he’s rearranging the contents of his brain, tucking away all the sloppy bits right in front of James until he’s rigid, composed, the leader.

God forbid that Kendall ever loses control.

“I don’t know. You’re throwing the word fuck around like you actually wanted to do something with it.”

Kendall recoils, his chair skidding back against the kitchen tile. “Are you hitting on me?”

“Fuck yes,” James breathes, because seriously, it’s been too long since he got his dick in anything. It’s not like Kendall’s going to take him up on it anyway. He’s just so damn angry, and joking and flirting are the easiest ways to defuse a situation. James is like the sexual fucking bomb squad.

Except maybe Kendall doesn’t know that he’s supposed to turn James down, because for a beat all James can see is the hue of his gray-green eyes, and then Kendall scoots his chair forward again. James barely has a second to process it, because Kendall is kissing him, hard and deep. It doesn’t take very long at all for the kissing to turn into stripping. The next thing James knows, he’s bent over the side of the Knights’ kitchen counter. Kendall’s hands are a rough bruise on his hips, but his tongue is pressing soft against the notches of James’s spine.

Kendall works his way down, his mouth sloppy and soft from the back of James’s neck until he’s so low that he has to drop to his knees, pressing a kiss above the curve of James’s ass. A groan escapes from James’s throat when Kendall’s tongue darts out, licking down until he’s got slick wetness pressed up against his asshole.

Sex with his friends is a terrible idea, and James knows that like he knows not to touch a hot stove, but he has always had trouble with things like rules.

He doesn’t put a stop to it.

Kendall doesn’t seem all that concerned with stretching James. His dick is an insistent, uncomfortable press until James forces himself to relax, opening up enough that Kendall can thrust all the way inside of him. James stares at his hands, gripping the counter. His knuckles are white, like Logan’s knuckles were white that night when everything was lightning and magic.

The shape of Kendall’s cock inside of him is strange, heavy weight and amazing heat. It makes James feel like he’s burning up from the inside out. Except Kendall’s not moving. James can hear the tiny sucking breaths he’s taking, can feel the power of Kendall’s hands on his hips, the trembling of his thighs where they’re pressed against James’s. He’s completely still. James tests it, rocking back, and he hears Kendall suck in sharp, can almost hear words form in his mouth, like he wants to ask James if this is really okay.

The idea of it pricks at James; he doesn’t want Kendall to be sweet to him. He wants to be fucked.

“Move already,” James hisses, rocking back. Kendall’s grip is steel on his waist. He doesn’t get far. It doesn’t matter, because Kendall gets the hint. He presses a kiss to the back of James’s head that’s entirely too gentle for what James wants, but then he obeys, slamming forward so fast and so deep that James shouts out his name. And it’s good; it’s so fucking good. None of that messy emotional crap that James is sick of trying to deal with. Kendall’s skated beside him through years of broken bones and bruised ribs. He knows James isn’t delicate, and he’s not about to treat him that way. He fucks into him, and it is not gentle, and it is not kind, and somehow it’s exactly what  
James has been looking for.

It’s the first time in a year that he comes without Logan’s name a whisper on his lips.

“Why?” Kendall asks against the back of his neck, and somehow that’s not the question that James expects.

James groans into the counter. “What do you mean, why? You’re hot. I’m hot. What we just did? That was pretty hot.”

“But why me?” Kendall asks.

What is he, a girl?

“I’m not picky,” James says, because at this point he’s really not. It only occurs to him after he says it that Kendall’s one of his best friends, and maybe he should be trying to spare his feelings.

Kendall pulls out of him, not making any attempt to be nice about it, and James likes that too. He’s a masochist, apparently. He listens as Kendall, pissed and a little bit confused, asks, “I thought you were-“

He actually bites his tongue. James turns around and he can _see_ Kendall’s teeth digging into the muscle.

“What?” James asks, impatient.

“I thought you were with Logan.”

“What?” He repeats dumbly, eyes nearly popping out of his head.

“You fucked him. The night of his grandma’s funeral. I assumed-“

“How- how did you know about that?”

“Um, I went to get some water in the kitchen. I got a show instead.” Kendall wiggles his fingers tiredly. He’s naked and shining with sweat, but every nuance of his posture suggests exhaustion. James doesn’t like it. “Surprise.”

“That was once.” James grinds out.

“Are you sure Logan knows that?”

“It’s been a year, Kendall. I’ve been with a ton of people since then.”

“I know, but.” He bites his lip. “I thought you guys had like, an open relationship. ‘Cause you’re kind of a whore.”

“Oh yeah?” James shoves him, chuckling, but he doesn’t really find it funny. Talking about Logan is wiping away all the afterglow of what just went down. It’s making him feel mopey. 

Maybe Kendall gets that, because he leans over and captures James’s lips in a kiss, insistent, until James opens his mouth to him.  
 

\---

  
“I’m so proud of you, son,” is his dad’s response, all gruff and masculine, when James tells him about the move to California. It’s a far cry from the beaming smile and crushing bear hug that his mom gave him, but James can’t fault his dad for it. After all, James is calling him from the airport. Everything’s happening so fast that James feels like he’s on a roller coaster, speeding down the tracks at a million miles an hour.

“Thanks,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat.

“What else have you been up to?” What _else_? Like becoming a popstar isn’t enough? “Any new girls?”

James sighs and tells him about the latest chick he’s been banging, a brunette with a tight little body and some great moves in the bedroom. His dad makes a pleased noise and says, “Good for you. You’re not going to keep it up, right? None of those long distance relationships for you, buddy?”

As if. James rolls his eyes. “No. Whole new state. So many new girls.”

It’s what his dad wants to hear. James can tell he’s said the right thing by the lilt of his dad’s laughter. Behind him, Logan squeezes his shoulders and says, “We’re boarding in ten minutes.”

“Dad, I’ve got to go.”

“Hang on, hang on, your stepmom wants to talk to you.”

“Dad, no-“

“Hi, Jamie-baby! Your father and I are so proud.”

Her voice grates on James’s ears. Oblivious to his time constraints, she prattles on and on about the places they’re going to go on their family vacation. If his dad’s female inquest wasn’t enough to kill his good mood, this is. All he can think is if it’s a family vacation, why isn’t he invited?

“James, hey!” Kendall yells across the terminal, a bright red-blue mark half apparent beneath the collar of his shirt. It’s the result of the thank-you-for-making-my-dreams-come-true sex James gave him. Not that James needs any reason to bang Kendall anymore, other than that he’s willing and there. Kendall smiles, wide open and happy. “Come on!”

Carlos is standing by Kendall’s side, waving James towards the gate. He can feel Logan’s hands at his back, pushing him forward. All three of them are watching him with a mixture of pride and exhilaration and excitement.

James doesn’t even bother saying goodbye. He hangs up his cell. These boys are his family, and they will take him more places that his dad and his bitch ever will.

“You ready?” Logan asks, squeezing James’s arm.

Is James ready to leave behind things like curses and dads who don’t care enough and moms who care too much? Is he ready to have an adventure with the people he loves most in this world?

What kind of question is that? Of course he is.

“Let’s do this.”  
 

\---

   
Being wanted is like a drug.

When James has Kendall’s mouth hot on his throat or when he’s buried so deep inside Kendall that he thinks he can come without even moving, he feels powerful. He feels like conquering the earth is not so far out of reach.

When they’re apart, he feels hollow and empty. He feels like he is turning to ash, crumbling away.

The problem is, he needs that first feeling; the adrenaline and the strength like steel in his bones. He yearns for it. It is a twitch in his fingers and an itch across the surface of his skin. It’s an addiction. He recognizes, in this muddled place in the back of his mind, that he’s digging himself a hole. He’s fucking with a friendship that he’s spent too many years nurturing. He recognizes that he’s making a huge mistake.

It’s almost a relief when Kendall finds Jo.

James thinks that Kendall’s relationship with her will be the end of things. He should have known better. Kendall hoards people like material possessions. He doesn’t gather them in surplus; instead he clutches every person he gains close to his chest, like precious metals, like king’s gold.

The same night that Kendall and Jo start dating, Kendall yanks him into the bathroom. He entwines James in his long limbs, an octopus pulling him beneath the surface of the ocean, and that’s what it feels like. Drowning.

Right then, James knows that he should quit. He doesn’t.

Kendall isn’t the only person James gets with, of course. He dates and he fucks and he develops carefully crafted rules that apply to everyone, except the people who matter the most.

They don’t apply to Kendall.

They wouldn’t apply to Logan, if being with Logan was anything like possible.

Logan makes James laugh and Kendall makes him crazy, and James knows which one he’d choose if he could. But Logan isn’t interested in him that way, and Kendall is; Kendall kisses the skin inside of James’s knee and murmurs that he _wants him_ when James doesn’t even really want himself, and he thinks that could be enough.

It’s not like what he feels for Kendall is the kind of thing they write songs about, or that people go to war for. This is just- it’s fun, is what it is.  
It’s fun and it’s comfort, for both of them. James looks at Kendall and sees a boy who is already king of the world. He is meant to be something bigger than the leader of a silly boy band. He is meant to slay dragons.

He is meant to leave.

Friend or lover, it’s inevitable that Kendall will one day walk out of James’s life the same way that he walked in. And James thinks that maybe, having that knowledge now, he can prepare himself for it. He will build walls around his heart, a fortress that Kendall will never be able to penetrate, and when he goes it will not leave a scar. Until then, James can kiss him. James can love him without being in love with him.

Kendall is safe.

Kendall is supposed to be safe.  

As the time they spend in California wears on, he has trouble separating the things that he actually feels for Kendall from the things he _wants_ to feel for Kendall. There is passion and there is hurt and there is friendship and there is anger, and James has trouble telling where one ends and one begins. He still knows that Kendall is going to leave, because Kendall likes girls. He has a father to impress, a father who stands tall in the midst of deserts and jungles made of concrete, who is swathed in red and white and blue. The man raised Kendall in camouflage, like a chameleon, and it worked. Kendall changes the colors of James’s heart with every second of every day, and James is beginning to think that he can’t handle it. But he sticks with Kendall anyway, because the sex is good and the hate is better; the resentment that simmers in his blood for his best friend and for himself.

It’s easy to let his whole body come to a boil, to let himself believe that this maybe _is_ what being in love feels like. It is a catastrophe threatening to crush him.

The only time James feels like himself anymore is when he’s with Logan, when he can breathe and smile and mean it, all of it. Because of course he is already in love with Logan. He’s known that for years now, since the taste of lightning and sadness on his lips.

Logan fills the places in James he never knew were empty while Kendall hollows them out, his hands claws that tear at James’s insides. If James was brave, he would tell Logan everything. He would tell him about the secret thing that may or may not be love that lives in his chest and in his memory, the thing that has a life of its own. And then he wouldn’t asphyxiate himself beneath Kendall’s secret tragedy and his own fucked up commitment issues and the weight of the curse pressing in behind him.

The curse; the stupid fucking curse. It followed him to Hollywood. James has seen it in the eyes of the girls he’s dated here, girls who never have any trouble leaving him behind. Or maybe they’re just flighty. James isn’t sure he believes that there _is_ a curse, because he’s at the age where he’s creating his own beliefs, spinning them from thin air and stardust, but he does believe a simple truth. People leave.

People always leave.

If Kendall leaves, James knows he will be wrecked, but he’s prepared for that eventuality since forever ago. If James does something to fuck it all up with Logan? He won’t survive. It’s an eventuality that can never come to pass. Whenever James thinks about it, he feels fear like ice on the back of his neck. He doesn’t know how he would live with himself if he didn’t have anyone to jam out with in front of his mirror or to teach him arithmetic and politics and the names of all the galaxies. He doesn’t know what he would do without the boy who has always believed in him when James can’t spin together enough self confidence to be himself. So he doesn’t tell. He lets things carry on and on and on, and he acknowledges that he does feel something big and scary for Kendall. He lets it consume him when he wants to fight against it.

The things Kendall makes him feel are like the distortion on a record player; the places where the track goes scratchy or skips or warbles.  
There are times when their strange relationship is music and sound and times when it is nothing but white noise. James likes it best when Kendall marks him all over with fingertip bruises and tongue-lavished hickeys and he doesn’t have to think about the static.

All he wants is to be owned, to lose himself in the sex and the roughness. Sometimes Kendall fucks James with his hands wrapped around his throat, and that’s good. It’s so fucking good to let everything go except that. James likes the idea of ownership, and it’s not right; no one should want to be a possession. But James does. There is comfort in belonging to someone other than himself.

The problem is that Kendall will never actually belong to him in return. He can’t ever belong to anyone, really. Not when he spends all of his time chasing an ideal of a man from one Middle Eastern country to another, from ports in Seoul to harbors in Hawaii. The only real person who manages to capture his attention for any length of time is Jo, and it gets to be so that James hates her.

He absolutely despises her. So he treats her like he treats most girls he doesn’t plan on dating; he ignores her. Some of it is misplaced resentment that she chose Kendall instead of him, of course, but most of it is that he can’t stand seeing her all over him.

It makes him feel bad, because there’s nothing wrong with the girl, per se. Her only real flaw (other than the fact that she didn’t give James the time of day) is that Kendall wants her. She fits into his perfect American dream more than James ever can. And he knew that, going in; he knew that this thing with Kendall was a bad idea, and that it was going to backfire right in his face.

Somehow the knowledge that he was right doesn’t make him feel better.  


  
\---

  
Kendall sits on the edge of his bed on a sunny day, hands shoved deep in his pockets, an awkward tilt to his shoulders. Except it’s not James’s bed at all; it’s Kendall’s. James is naked beneath the sheets, and he tries not to feel vulnerable as he sits up and meets Kendall’s eyes.

Kendall stares at the sunlight streaming through his window and says, “You need to talk to Logan.”

“About what?” James’s voice cracks with sleep.

“I thought he was over you, James. You said he was over you.” Now Kendall’s voice is the one that is cracking.

“There’s nothing to be over. Logan and I- we weren’t-“

“He doesn’t know that. He came to me and basically called me a homewrecking whore.”

James has to stifle the instinct to laugh. Automatically, he says, “Those words would never come out of Logan’s mouth.”

Kendall glares at him. “Logan’s not a saint.”

Yeah, well. None of them are. James bunches the sheets up around his middle, sitting up. “Where were you, anyway?”

“Pool. Clearing my head.” Kendall is speaking in terse sentences, which mostly means he’s restraining himself from punching James in the jaw. What right does he have to be mad about anything? James wants to tell him to get the fuck out, but it’s Kendall’s room.

He doesn’t stop to think that Kendall’s worried about Logan’s feelings, or anything. Logan doesn’t have feelings about James, and if he did, it’s not Kendall’s business. He doesn’t get to be a territorial asshole when he spent most of the previous day wrapped up in his girlfriend.

Even if he did spend most of the night letting James fuck him into the mattress.

Logan’s totally right. Kendall is a homewrecking whore.

Idly, James thinks that Kendall doesn’t to have a room in his mental-dream-mansion. He doesn’t want to have to clean the sheets every time he comes over with some girl.

“I’ll talk to Logan. Is that what you want to hear?”

Kendall gives him this expression that could almost be described as pouting. James grabs hold of his hand, sucking one of Kendall’s fingers into his mouth. He curls his tongue soft around the tip and murmurs, “Your face is going to stick that way.”

Kendall yanks his hand away. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” James asks, confounded.

“Don’t treat me like I’m one of the puck fucks back home or some stupid actress. You can’t make this better with sex. Talk to Logan.”

“Fine.” James slumps back down onto Kendall’s pillows. “I was planning on it.”

Talking to Logan is great in theory, but in reality James has to work himself up to it with a series of practice sessions in the mirror throughout the day. When he finally gets around to it, he plants himself on the couch for nearly an hour, trying to still the trembling in his fingers.

It shouldn’t be this hard. Logan is his best friend. But Logan is also a constellation of fears and hopes, a pattern of stars that form the picture of a boy. He has so many different layers and aspects and James doesn’t want to disappoint any part of him; not the brainy boy-genius or the childhood best friend or the amazing singer who dances beside him on stage. Logan is just so…complex.

James wishes he could be like that. He thinks when someone puts all the pieces of himself together, there is no picture to be found; only holes and gaps like an abstract painting gone wrong. There are days when he’ll look in the mirror and expect to see something different; a failed Picasso. A monster. A maneater, maybe? He’s always disappointed. His reflection is hazel eyes and a sweet smile and the tan he’s been trying to build up since he stepped foot off the plane. There’s only ever him; nothing more, and nothing less. Nothing complex at all.

He tries not to let that get to him.

Logan stomps through the door near eight, a funk like a storm cloud hovering around his head. He’s been out of it all day. James noticed when they were in the studio, but he was too distracted by his own personal drama to do anything about it.

Logan’s gaze falls upon him, and James feels like the room is beginning to go dark. He folds his hands together and tells his fingers to stay still already, damnit. The quaking is getting to be a little much.

“Kendall told me that you, uh, talked,” James says, uncertain of the words. Kendall exaggerates a lot more than most people give him credit for, and James doesn’t know if he’s leaping onto a wild accusation or if something more is going on here. He doesn’t know _what_ , exactly, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’s been completely obtuse.

“He did?” Logan sounds guilty. He clears his throat and says, “I mean, yeah, uh. We did.”

There’s a weight in those words that James isn’t sure how to process. He makes this vague gesture in the air that could mean anything at all. He’s using his traitorous fingers to talk because he’s abruptly forgotten how to speak.

“How do you feel about Kendall?” Logan asks, and there’s accusation in his voice. James isn’t so stupid that he misses it. He wants to lie, to denydenydeny, but why should he? He doesn’t owe Logan anything. Logan’s the one who shot him down that night three years ago.  
Logan’s the one who didn’t want the things that James was prepared to offer him. This is obviously just his paternalistic instinct, or something. Logan’s always tried to father him, or mother him, like James hasn’t been doing well enough on his own.

James looks away so that Logan won’t see how much that pisses him off. He tries to focus on the good things, on the idea that Kendall planted; a seedling of hope in his chest.  

“I think-” James takes a deep breath, needing to inhale _exhale_. “The important question is how you feel about me.”

He _knows_ how Logan feels. He knows that they will never be anything more than this, friends sharing the same space. He’s mad at himself for thinking there could ever be more. He’s jealous of what he can’t have.

Logan doesn’t answer, and it’s as good as a confirmation. He doesn’t want to hurt James’s feelings. Of course he doesn’t. He’s too good, too kind for that. James forces himself to gather up the last of his courage so that he can go back to Kendall and say, definitively, that he’s got nothing to worry about.

Though why Kendall would worry is an entirely different grab-bag of questions.

“Logan. Do you- have a thing for me?” He has to force the words out. They feel like glass scraping his throat.

Logan is the one looking away now. James has to grab his face, to force him to meet his eyes because these are words he needs to hear.  
Maybe if Logan rejects him, straight up, he’ll be able to let the ever present ghost of him go.

Except Logan meets his eyes, honey-molasses irises dark and sad. He says in the softest, sweetest voice, “I wish you could love me instead.”

Logan yanks his face from James’s grip, straightening. He turns to go down the hallway, and James is still feeling that plea like the kidney shot it is. He has to catch his breath and practically growl, “ _Logan_ , wait,” because words aren’t his friend right now.

This is some awful practical joke. It has to be. Logan can’t want him because nobody can ever want him, not the way they talk about in books and fairytales. That’s why he has to be hot, why he has to be sexy and desirable physically, because at least then people won’t dismiss him immediately. They have to get through the shiny façade first.

Logan stops in his tracks, and James doesn’t care what this is. Logan would never purposely try to hurt him. James knows that the same way he knows that skinny jeans emphasize his package in a way that makes girls swoon. But what James doesn’t know is why Logan would be into him. Is this a crush, a phase he’s going to grow out of? Is he just looking for sex without strings? He knows about Kendall. _Love me instead_ , he’d asked, but that can’t be what he wants, because love hurts and Logan would never intentionally hurt James.

Maybe he is trying to give James a way out of this thing with Kendall. Maybe he just needs someone.

James can be that someone. The reasons don’t even matter. He’s got a hex on his head, a family curse that feels like a chain, pulling him down into the earth every time he dares to try to shake it. But Logan is Logan; the smartest guy he knows, his best friend since forever. He is the boy who laid on sun warm rocks with James when they were small, who would look at him over text books with whole galaxies in his eyes, planets that James would never be able to touch in his wildest dreams.

He is a single ecstatic moment in James’s memory where he thought _maybe_.

He is a dream crusher.

He’s _Logan_.

James can’t turn this opportunity down. He will take what Logan gives him until he isn’t prepared to give it anymore.

“Do you- want to come to my room? Just for tonight?”

Logan doesn’t say anything, but he waits for James there in the hallway, expectant. James leads Logan back to his room, kissing him breathless. His hands fumble inside of Logan’s clothes, his dorky sweater vest and the denim of his jeans. There’s this moment when James thinks it won’t happen, when Logan is hovering over him, hesitant, and James reaches out. He strokes a finger down his cheekbone and says, “We don’t have to.”

Logan shakes his head, vehement. He’s watching James like he’s a present that he gets to open on Christmas morning, and James doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know how to be something that is cherished. Logan’s obviously just confused. He doesn’t know what it is that he wants, and he’s come to James because he’s the most comfortable. They’ll fool around, and then Logan will get over it.

That’s what James is telling himself when Logan fucks back on his dick, but after that, he can’t concentrate on anything but Logan, silvered by moonlight, saying his name over and over again.  
 

\---

   
James has to pee. He climbs out of bed and makes it to the bathroom without any incidents. But on the way back, he runs into a problem.

That problem is nearly six foot, with blond hair and blazing green eyes. James glances at the door to his room. Logan is in there, sleeping comfortably in his bed.

Logan is in there, and Kendall probably knows it.

“Morning,” James says, as bright as he can muster.

Kendall just crosses his arms. “What are you doing?”

“Going back to sleep? We don’t have to be at the studio for a while yet…”

Kendall shakes his head and turns to go. In that moment he looks so small and so sad.

Logan’s supposed to be the indecisive one. James knows what decision he would make if he could. He knows who he would want to be with if nothing at all was on the line. If there was no curse and no social restrictions, no hurt and the chains of friendship weren’t wrapped around his neck like a noose.

But it is not a perfect world, and James cannot weigh the value of one heart against another.

“Stop,” he pleads. He can’t take the concave curves of Kendall’s shoulders. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. James wants to give peace a chance. Why do relationships even have to be so hard? He’s so scared that someone is going to end up hating him. If he was stronger, it  
wouldn’t matter.

James is not strong.

Kendall turns, agonizingly slow. “Look. Logan’s my best friend too. Don’t mess with his head.”

“I’m not messing with his head.”

“Do you like him?”

“Of course I like him.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. We can’t keep doing this if you’re thinking about fucking Logan too-“

“Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m in love with either of you,” James snaps, barely processing that oh, Kendall doesn’t actually know that James has already crossed that line. “It’s just sex. Dude, don’t try to fix me. Just fuck me.”

He means the last part to be sexy, but mostly he just sounds tired. Kendall gives him this completely inscrutable look, and it’s not fair. He has a girlfriend and a family and a perfect life. He shouldn’t be able to make James feel guilty about having a bad day, but something in that  
look does.

It makes James think that he knows every tiny nook and corner of his mind.

But he doesn’t. He can’t.

Kendall probably won’t even care if James ends it. All he gets out of the deal is sex, whenever he wants it. But it is not Kendall’s heart that James is weighing against Logan’s.

It’s his own.

James, above all things, is a narcissist. He needs to come out of every situation looking daisy fresh. He needs to be in control. If he were to end it with Kendall and find out what he already suspects; that it doesn’t even matter to him? No. He can’t. He can’t be the one left standing in the shadows, heart in his hand. Even if Logan could swoop up and pick up the pieces. Which won’t happen either way. No really. James doesn’t let the warm glow of them sleeping together trick him into thinking anything will change.

There is no such thing as happily ever after. James is confident in a million other superficial things. He’s confident in his ability to get another human being into bed and that he’ll always look amazing in a tux and that his voice deserves to be heard by most of mankind. But there are other things that he knows aren’t set in stone, like the things his voice has to say or the idea that anyone will ever be able to accept him forever. He never says it out loud because he doesn’t want anyone to look at him like he’s pathetic, like he’s broken. At the same time, he knows the truth of those words.

 _Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all._

Kendall takes a step forward, his hand hovering over James’s hip. “What are you doing, James?”

“I don’t know.”

“Really?” Kendall’s face is closer, his breath sweet across James’s lips. “What are you playing at? No ideas?”

That’s when Logan stumbles out the door.

Kendall snatches his hand back. He looks between Logan and James and breathes, “Oh.”

James doesn’t want to hurt anybody, but he has hurt Kendall. He can tell by the places where Kendall’s eyes crinkle, his mouth going thin. There is a crease between his eyebrows as he turns to leave.

“Kendall, wait,” James says, trying to physically stop him with a hand at his elbow. He hasn’t seen that expression on Kendall’s face since the last time his dad stood him up.

James shouldn’t be able to make that face appear out of the blue.

He shouldn’t have that kind of power.

Something aches in his stomach.

Kendall is looking at James like the idea of touching him would be worse than death. In that moment, James is not a wish that fate granted. James is a curse.

“Dude. Just- no. It’s not. It’s not _anything_ , okay? I’ve got a pool date with Jo.”

James winces away from the words. It’s like Kendall knows that’s the thing that would hurt James the most. He watches Kendall leave the apartment before spinning, apologies on his lips. “Logan, I-“

“It’s okay.”

What? No it’s not. It’s not even close to okay. All of this is crushing him. It’s a weight on his chest, and why is it that Kendall and Logan are still able to stand so straight and tall? Why is it that they can’t see the two of them are slowly sucking away his soul?

“You sure?”

“Yeah. It’s fine,” Logan says, voice neutral.

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

It would be so much easier if Logan was solid ground, if James could just look at him and see the friend that he’s grown up with his whole life. Instead he looks at him and sees lightning and sky, electricity and his name turned to a whisper, to a prayer, to something simultaneously as soft and as loud as thunder.

“I want-“

Maybe Logan doesn’t know what he wants, because Logan is kissing him, sloppy and soft.

“Logan,” James tries to pull away, but he can’t.

Logan won’t let him.  
 

\---

   
Kendall forgives him, eventually. He shouldn’t, because James has fucked up, big time. He’s aware of that.

He’s also aware that he has no idea how to fix this. Sometimes he thinks he can get away with what he’s doing forever.

Sometimes he thinks that it’s all going to end like a shoot off at the O-K Corral.

His insides feel paper thin, like the lightest breeze could tear right through him. He is a shadow of the person he is supposed to be, and he doesn’t care.

He will change himself for Kendall, and he will change himself again for Logan. He will bend over backwards and sideways and twist in on himself like a contortionist to keep both of their affections, to maintain their desire and their trust. When they watch him with eyes filled with lust, it’s the only time he thinks he is real, anymore. It’s the only time he doesn’t worry that he is going to fade into nothingness. He can ask for it harder and faster and rougher.

It’s the after part he can’t handle. When he’s lying prone next to Kendall or Logan, listening to their soft exhalations and the beat of their hearts, the question comes to him, unbidden.

What kind of person only defines themselves by merciless love?

And it _is_ merciless. A person has to be ruthless to interchange one lover for another, like they are casual fucks instead of the only people in the entire world who make him feel like he actually exists.

James doesn’t have an answer, and he doesn’t search for one. The future is a distant, hazy thing, and James doesn’t want to do anything to force it closer. So he keeps doing what he’s been doing. He fucks Kendall. He fucks Logan. Sometimes he even fucks a girl on the side. Some nameless random. He figures when things get really bad, he’ll put an end to it. He’s got time until then.

He’s got nothing but time.  
 

\---

  
He is wrapped up in Logan, sucking soft on his neck, when Logan rubs at the newly formed hickeys and asks, “Must you mark your territory like that?”

James laughs, high and sharp, because he’s never once thought of Logan as something he can own until this moment. Possessiveness rears in his chest, but it is not what he feels for Kendall; the desire to pillage and conquer. This is different. This is something like fierce delight, like a gift freely given.

Logan takes it for granted that he is James’s, and instead of being pleased by it, James is frightened. _This family is cursed_ , he thinks.

James doesn’t exactly know how to process it, so he nips at Logan’s throat, working his way up to his lips until he is kissing him, hard and filthy. He murmurs, “What can I say? My mouth looks good all over you.”

This is his fallback plan whenever he is bewildered; ignore the problem until it goes away. Logan rucks up his shirt, fingers tapping like he’s playing a piano against James’s ribs. He groans into the kiss when James starts to use tongue.

The plan works.

The problem doesn’t go away.  
 

\---

   
James has nights that blur into golden days that blur into nights of indigo and silver, midnight and charcoal. He learns the contours of his best friends’ faces in a million different settings, in the quiet hush of dawn and beneath the hum of fluorescent lights at a crowded party. He can no longer remember all the places and he has been with Logan or Kendall, but he can perfectly visualize the things he has done.

For instance, there are the scars on Kendall’s knuckles as his hand coaxes an orgasm from James’s cock or there is the pale play of shadows against Logan’s thighs as he fucks inside of him. There is the pool, where there are currents of light and darkness that make James feel like they are living inside a star field, Logan hot and tight around him but no-

He is in a bed, beneath a fort of blankets and pillows, Kendall’s guitar a stiff protrusion in his back as he is getting fucked-

He’s in the soundbooth, the mixer a dim silhouette in glowing green and red as Logan’s hands squeeze his ass-

He’s in the janitor’s closet, the scent of Clorox in his nose with Kendall pressed hard and ready against him-

The strobe lights of the club are fast flickers like heat lightning over Logan’s face as James licks the inside of his thigh-

The sun highlights the freckles on Kendall’s back while he sucks James off beneath the overpass outside of In ‘N Out-

Logan screams his name in the middle of the night, in the middle of the apartment, and the sound is as high and raw and breathy as a song lyric-

Kendall kisses the corners of James’s lips in the shower, soft and tender and sweet-

He is in the Pacific Ocean, with his best friends bobbing beside him, their feet tangling with his, or no-

He is in the studio, or no, the car, or no, the park, or-

He is everywhere.

He is nowhere.

He is in hell.  
 

\---

   
“What do you talk about with Kendall?” Logan asks, his fingertips dancing over the sheets, tracing a wrinkle in the fabric.

“I don’t know. We don’t talk a whole lot.” James squeezes his eyes shut so that he doesn’t have to see Logan’s reaction to that. It doesn’t help. He hears the hitch of his breath. He can feel his judgment like a palm pressed to the back of his neck.

“You guys write songs,” Logan prods. And that’s true. Sometimes, they’ll be in the middle of some primetime cop drama and there will be a commercial for the ten o clock news. It will have a clip of a soldier or a pilot or a man with medals clipped to his chest. After everyone else goes to sleep, Kendall will camp out on the couch, eyes glued to the TV for something like a secret message on the screen.

When James sees alarm building behind Kendall’s eyes like a scream, the edges of his ever present wolf grin crumbling, he takes Kendall to do the one thing that always makes him feel better. James has always kind of resented Kendall’s easy grace when it comes to music. It’s like he was born speaking a language that James has had to work at his entire life. But days like those? He locks them up in his room with Kendall’s battered old guitar, a relic his dad left in the rush between the divorce and the time they stationed him in Seoul or Dhaka or Kandahar or Karachi. He coaxes Kendall into playing, into channeling everything he feels into that stupid guitar and the newer bass perched on his own lap.

Sometimes they craft lyrics, words like puzzle pieces slowly forming a whole thing, and sometimes they don’t. But they don’t stop. Not until Kendall’s solid and real and not this pale shade of the boy he’s supposed to be, filled with worry and fear.

It’s not anything special; it’s just what friends do for each other. Except for some reason, James doesn’t want to tell Logan that. He feels like saying any of it out loud would be a betrayal of Kendall’s trust. Which makes no sense, ‘cause- it’s _Logan_.

“We talk about his dad,” James says quietly, a half truth. It’s not a secret that Mr. Knight is career military, or that he visits his mistress more often than he visits his kids. It’s not even a secret that Kendall worries about him every second of every day.

What is a secret is that Kendall can’t contain all that worry and fear.

What is a secret is that Kendall ever loses control.

“Oh. Kendall, um.” Logan’s teeth worry over his lip, and James wants to kiss him. So he does, because it’s something that’s allowed now.  
When he pulls away, Logan continues, “He never talks to me about that. I guess you guys have a lot in common.”

James snorts. “Not really.”

His dad tours seedy nightclubs and promotes other bands with James’s blonde bimbo of a stepmother pressed into his side. His dad’s got a comfy little house in the suburbs, and the most James ever worries about is that he’ll get into a car crash after downing too many Jaeger bombs. Back when they still lived in Minnesota, James spent every weekend he wasn’t with the guys at his dad’s. It’s not even close to the same thing. Except, in a way, it is. James will never understand what it is like to fear for his father when he’s backlit by a war, but he will always know what it is like to be a kid who isn’t good enough to stay home for.

It bothers him that Logan sees that, like he’s cutting through the carefully crafted walls that James has built, the I-don’t-care-that-my-parents-split façade.

“Yeah. You do,” Logan says, and it looks like it troubles him.

Why? Does he want a father who prefers doing anything else to spending time with his son?

James buries his head into Logan’s side, knowing that’s not fair at all. James would never wish that on Logan. At the same time, he doesn’t like the knowing look that Logan is giving him, like he can ever understand what it means to be rejected by your own parents. Logan is a great many things, but no one ever leaves him.

James wouldn’t leave him, if he had anything like a choice.

“ _Love me_ ,” James whispers against Logan’s skin, so low that he can’t hear it.

“What?”

“I said fuck me,” James murmurs into his ribs, flicking his tongue out to emphasize his point. Logan groans, digging his fingers into  
James’s shoulder and hauling him up so that they’re eye to eye.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“You don’t want to fuck me?” James asks innocently, palming a hand over Logan’s bare cock. It twitches with interest.

“You’re lucky you’re hot,” Logan retorts, hauling him closer still.

Something inside James twinges.  
 

\---

  
James tries to break it off with Kendall. They’re in bed, curled into each other’s bodies the night before the biggest awards show of their famous lives so far.

“Kendall?”

“Yeah?” he asks, all sleepy and open.

“I want-“ James stops himself, biting his tongue.

“What do you want?” Kendall asks earnestly. His eyes are so green. His bangs fall across his eyebrows, and James can’t help reaching out to brush them back.

Maybe Kendall won’t care if he ends it, but can James really give this up?

No. Nononono.

He kisses him, soft and chaste.  
 

\---

   
They’re at an awards show, and Logan is sucking him off in the fancy pants bathroom.

And James isn’t enjoying it.

Okay, he is. A lot. But even with Logan on his knees in front of him, James thinks that he doesn’t really know what this is. Logan doesn’t really want James.

He wants the idea of a boy he lost his virginity to.

He wants the person who exists in the sunlight, when he is singing and dancing and putting on an act.

He wants the boy that James was at fifteen, and not the boy he is now; broken.

Logan licks soft along the shape of his dick and James can’t think about that anymore. He can’t think about the way that Logan looks at him every time they discuss Kendall.

He can’t think about the revulsion he sees in his eyes.  
 

\---

   
Three people are thrown into a hole, blindfolded.

Each knows that the other is there, but each has to dig their own way out if they want to survive.

What happens?

James has that dream over and over again. He’s not the brightest, but he’s not stupid either. He knows that people will chew off their own leg to get out of a bear trap.

Love is closing around all three of their necks.

Take three teenage boys and confront them with the overwhelming idea of commitment? They will trample each other to try to escape asphyxiation, no matter what their hearts say.

James glances over at Kendall, naked and prone and asleep beside him. He rubs at his throat and tries to remember how to breathe.  
 

\---

“Do you love Kendall?” Carlos asks, watching the waves lap against jetty. They’re in some random town on the East Coast, touring, and it’s the first break they’ve gotten in weeks. It’s the middle of the winter, freezing as hell, but after so many days in the bus, they had to hit the beach. Even if it’s covered in frost.

“Of course,” James answers, immediate and fierce.

Carlos sips his Coke and asks, “Are you _in love_ with Kendall?”

James glances away. He doesn’t know how to say that the answer is yes and no, always and never. He doesn’t know how to explain a feeling that hurts so much and so deep that he actually resents it, most of the time.

Yes, he is in love with Kendall, but he desperately does not want to be, because. Well. The thing that exists between him and Kendall can never go deeper than the base descriptions, than the electricity and the magnetism. They will never have a foundation based on something tangible, and that is where the line between Kendall and Logan exists. Passion is intoxicating. But when it dies, it dies for good.

Whatever exists between them is already starting to fizzle out. Kendall barely even looks at him anymore.

“What about Logan?” Carlos asks, and it is an immediate flush of guilt and yearning high in his cheeks, a flood of emotion in his chest. He stares at the cherry red of the aluminum can and tries not to cry, because he’s so damn frustrated.

James has always had trouble seeing past his own impulsiveness, past the overwhelming tides of passion and the idea that he is starring in his very own movie of life. But when he looks at it objectively, he can see that there is more. Logan may not have made any grand gestures, but he doesn’t need to force his way into James’s bloodstream. He’s been a part of James since before James knew how to compartmentalize all the separate chambers of his heart. It’s not like they have no chemistry; Logan is still the memory of lightning and the feel of it in his veins. It’s just that he is a quieter sort of passion, the kind that simmers without ever dying out.

It’s wrong that he loves both of them. It is. He knows that.  

Why can’t he separate the things he feels? It’s this constant tug of war in his chest, and each of the boys have equal strength, equal weight on their side. During the time he spends with Kendall, James thinks Logan cannot top what exists between them, the roar of crashing waves and the gale force winds. But the second he steps into Logan’s presence, it’s a storm brewing in the distance, flashes of light and the rumble of thunder. The whole war starts all over again.

In the far reaches of his mind, yes, James knows he loves one boy more deeply than the other. He even knows which one he’d like to choose.

But he also knows which one he _will_ choose, if it comes down to it.

He knows whose friendship he can afford to lose if their relationship goes sour and whose he cannot live without.  
   


\---

   
“Let’s stop,” James says, and his voice comes out small and stricken. “I want to stop. This isn’t right.”

They’re in the corner of a club, music loud, bass thudding. Gustavo’s got them scouting the place to see if it’s a good option for their next tour.

James decided it was a good option for the apocalypse instead.

The meaning behind his words is clear.

“What about what I want?” Kendall asks quietly. “Do I even get a choice in any of this?”

James blinks. He sort of wasn’t aware that Kendall would want one.

“It’s just sex,” he says, and yeah, he sounds like an idiot.

Kendall’s expression darkens. “You’re right.”

He’s up in James’s face, pressed against him, and he’s hard. Ke$ha’s voice in the background is pretty insistent that James should stop with his blah blah blah, and James’s dick kind of agrees with her. Whatever else Kendall is, he’s fucking fantastic in bed. He arches into the light trace of Kendall’s fingers down his sides. The spaces between their bodies is as minute as the silence between drumbeats, between each pulse of their hearts.

Kendall’s hand hovers over the button of James’s jeans, and he asks, “Do you really want to stop?”

His voice isn’t cruel. It’s tentative, worried.

James doesn’t know what that means, but he does know that he’s horny as hell, and that he doesn’t want Kendall to keep using that voice.

Being with Kendall, god. It’s like being underwater. James likes to hold his breath until he can’t anymore, until his lungs are bursting and he knows that he’s going to drown if he doesn’t get air. And then, when he’s right on the brink of it, he stays down for one more second.  
Just to prove that he can. So he says, “Keep going,” and thrusts up into the heel of Kendall’s hand.  
 

\---

   
They’re screaming down the freeway.

Actually, they’re carefully obeying the seventy mile per hour speed limit while other drivers race by at ninety because Logan is basically a grandma in a teenage boy suit, but still. Seventy’s pretty fast. In Minnesota the speed limit never gets that high.

James has his heels kicked up on the dashboard, which doubtless pisses Logan off, but he doesn’t care. This day is perfect. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and they’re done with the studio for the day.

Kendall’s out with Jo, and yeah, James resents it. When Kendall’s gone, James misses kissing him, misses how safe he feels in his arms and how good he feels when they’re together. But there are so many more things he doesn’t miss, like how Kendall never seems to commit his entire focus to James.

He glances across the seat at Logan, who is gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles are turning white. Thinking about Logan when he is gone is not an empty space. It is like his heart fills with warmth, like the embers of a fire, and that scares him.

He doesn’t know what to do with something healthy and whole, because he is neither of those things.

James reaches up, lacing their fingers together on the wheel. Logan, terrified of getting into an accident, shrugs him off.

James laughs, because that’s what Logan needs for his shoulders to relax, for his tension to ease up. But inside, he’s thinking that Logan always shrugs him off.

That is why James needs Kendall; because if he wasn’t around, he would die of it, of this clingy need to be with Logan to the point of desperation.  


 ---

  
   
James knocks on the heavy wooden door, a taptaptap rhythm that is familiar and easy.

The greeting he gets is neither of those things.

“James,” Kendall says dully. James can see a flash of blonde hair behind him. Jo is sleeping in Kendall’s bed. Kendall’s eyes are guarded, his expression completely neutral.

“Guess you’re not free tonight,” James says, and he tries to make it sound jokey. His voice cracks. He’s not as good an actor as he tries to pretend to be.

Anger whips across Kendall’s features quick as lightning.

“Go fuck Logan, James. We’re interchangeable, right?”

“That’s not fair,” James says. “You’re not-“

“What I’m not is _you_. I don’t lie or cheat or- deceive people,” Kendall hisses. James doesn’t know where this is coming from. Last night Kendall bent him over the side of the couch and made James come, biting Kendall’s name into his own forearm. 

Between this moment and that one, what happened?

James rises to the first part of his accusation. “Oh yeah? I would never cheat on my girlfriend.”

“That’s because you can’t commit to having a girlfriend,” Kendall snaps. He slams the door in James’s face.

James is still trying to figure out what just went down.  
 

\---

  
   
It’s not jealousy.

It’s not sex.

It’s not practice, or a silly crush.

By the time James figures out that hey, Logan might actually be in love with him, he’s in too deep. Kendall is crowding in on him from one side and Logan on another. Neither of them is pressuring him into anything, but they’re his friends. How is he supposed to reject his friends?

He can’t.

He can’t turn them away.

He can’t say no.

He can’t do anything but hope he lives through this.  
 

\---

  
   
“I think maybe I fucked up. I think maybe Kendall’s never going to feel the same way, is he?” It’s not what James wants to say to Logan, but it’s what he _needs_ to say. It’s the words he needs to use to erect a barrier between the two of them, to keep Logan from getting too close. Kendall doesn’t even know this conversation is going on. Kendall didn’t even do anything to bring it on. He’s up in his room, clutching the  
phone close to his ear so that he can hear his dad’s voice over the sound of some drill going on in Timbuktu, or wherever.

“No,” Logan says, his gaze entirely focused on his text book, on mathematical equations he’s always understood better than actual human beings. James wishes that Logan could read him like that. He wishes Logan could see right to the heart of him, to all the things he cannot say. “It’s not you, James. He can’t.”

“Why can’t he?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he does either.” Logan takes a deep breath. He is looking straight at James, but not at his face. Instead his eyes are focused somewhere along his side, like there is a stain on James’s clothes that James can’t see. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“ _Logan_ -“

“No. We both deserve better.”

Deserve? James wants to laugh, because _deserving_ has never been a part of his personal dictionary. Does he deserve to be cursed? Does he deserve to be second best to his parents’ love lives? Does he even deserve this; a simple dismissal from his best friend?

Probably not. But Logan deserves a hundred million things, and all of them are better than James.

So he puts his head in his hands and he doesn’t disagree.     
 

\---

  
   
“The band’s breaking up.”

“That’s not even close to funny.”

“Do I look like I’m making a joke?” Kendall asks, tiredly. “Logan’s starting college in the fall.”

James’s heart stills in his chest. “He’s what?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself. I know you heard me.”

“Why would he-?”

“Why wouldn’t he? He wants to have a life away from all this shit, James. I don’t even blame him for it. We don’t work anymore.”

“The band’s amazing.”

“I’m not talking about _the band_ , dude.”

And James knows that. He can see all the places their friendship has started rotting. They used to be a citadel, and now they’ve fallen victim to decay. Most of it is James’s fault.

Of course it’s James’s fault.

Everyone he ever loves will leave. He’s known it since he was eight. Never mind that he probably helped it along.

“Look at what you did,” Kendall tells him, voice weary. “Are you really proud of this?”

No. James wants to take it all back, to take every moment he has walked this earth away because then things would be better, his friends would be happier, and there wouldn’t be so much pain. This is all his fault.

The curse is not a thing. It is a person. It is him.

James looks away.

“Why?” Kendall asks, soft. “Why did you mess with his head when you knew-“

“I don’t know anything,” James grits out, because shouldn’t Kendall see that with perfect clarity? James is a moron. He’s never understood how other people can grasp the concepts behind a working relationship so instinctively. Love has _never_ been instinctive for him. It is hard and it is awful, and it is an ache as wide as the Grand Canyon in his chest. He makes constant missteps. He is always putting his foot down in the wrong place. Even now. “You were my first love.”

“No,” Kendall shakes his head vehemently, and there is venom there. There is regret in the contours of his face. “I really wasn’t.”

James resents that Kendall is calling him a liar, but even more deeply, he resents that his words are true. James is cursed, James _is_ a curse, and because of it, Logan is leaving.

“I got an offer from a school in Minnesota. Full hockey scholarship. I’m going to take it.”

What?

“But-“

“I don’t belong in California, James. I don’t belong with you. And if I stay here, do you think we’re going to stop?”

He knows they won’t. He knows that together they are matches, waiting to be struck. They need to fuck or fight or do both at the same time, because that is what wildfires do. They engulf each other, they destroy each other, and they relish the act.

Kendall wants to punish himself for each and every moment that he doesn’t live up to the expectations of a man who he might never see again outside of a body bag, and James has spent his entire life trying to outrun words like a self fulfilling prophecy. He let his mother’s sadness creep into every crevice of his body, into the marrow of his bones and rot away at him until he became nothing but fear and decay.  
He’s let it get so that he expects bad things. He expects love to splinter and hurt, and he’s convinced himself that the splintering and hurting feels good. Somewhere along the line, James has turned into a masochist, and it bothers him that he can’t figure out the where or when.

The two of them; they are wrecked.

“Stay,” James says softly, pleading. Kendall is his best friend. What the hell is he supposed to do without his best friend?

“Grow some balls, dude.” Kendall’s face twists into something angry, something that James doesn’t understand. “Just man up, already.”

James doesn’t even know what that means, because he has never been the brave one. He has always hidden behind Kendall’s shoulders, waiting for him to smooth the path. Kendall is the one who grew up with lectures on honor and courage and twenty one gun salutes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Love is about being happy, James. Were you ever actually happy with _me_?”

“I-“ James stutters. He knows somewhere, deep in his brain that he wants Kendall to stay because he is easy. Because James can hide behind his shoulders and together they can stew in their own little bed of sex and misery and he can keep on being a coward. With Kendall, James will not be alone. He might not be happy, but he is something close to it, and doesn’t that count? “What about your dad. I thought he was going to come visit in October. You told me-“ James pauses. Kendall has told him a lot of things. About feeling alone. About trying to be brave in the face of so much terror. Maybe it’s not fair to use that against him. “We’re friends, and-“

“You think I told you those things because we were _friends_?” Kendall laughs. There’s no humor in it. The sound echoes throughout the room, piercing at James from all angles. “I thought- I thought a lot of really stupid things because apparently I’m an idiot.”

He exhales, anger like a tempest forming between them.

“Kendall-“

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I just want you to stay.”

Kendall laughs, and it is dark and bitter. “You think I don’t want to? You think this is fun for me? Logan asked me if I loved you, and I had to tell him no because-“

“Because you don’t love me.”

“That’s what you think? _Fuck you_. Fuck you so much, James. I love you so much I can’t breathe half the time, and it doesn’t even matter, because I’m never going to be the person you want. I had to tell Logan _no_ because do you know how fucking humiliating it is to be in love with someone who doesn’t love you back? How pathetic?”

He’s falling apart right in front of James’s eyes, and this is not what he expected at all.

“You want me to put everything on the line for you? Then tell me that I’m the one you want,” Kendall yells, his voice raw at the edges.

“What?” James stares at him, wondering if he’s forgotten how to speak the English language. “Of course I want-“

“No.” Kendall grinds out. His voice is venomous when he spits, “You want me to dump Jo, to quit hockey, when I’m not even the person you were after in the first place.” He actually sounds like the idea of it is painful, and his eyes are perfectly clear. He believes everything he’s saying.

James can’t feel his heart in his chest. He has turned to stone. Kendall says, “I’d give up anything for you, James. Can you really say the same thing?” He watches him for a second, this long stretch of time. Then he shoves the rest of his shit into his duffel bag. “That’s what I thought. I’ve got to get to the studio.”

James stares after him, thinking that he always thought it counted; the semi-happiness and deep passion that the two of them shared. He has never admitted the things that he feels for Logan out loud, because he thought that if he didn’t, Kendall wouldn’t know. He has lied and he has cheated, and he has done whatever he could to smother Logan in his thoughts so that everything he felt for that stupid, wonderful, genius of a boy wouldn’t show. And it is only now that he realizes all his efforts don’t mean anything. Kendall knows.

He can barely hear the hum of the air conditioner or the chatter of the TV, because Kendall knowsKendallknowsKendallknows. Kendall knows, and he has never liked being second best.

For the first time, James realizes that Kendall expected more than he’s ever been willing to give. James underestimated him. He’d seen a boy with a dream, a mirror of his own desires and passions and fears.

He had never even tried to look deeper.

James thinks that Kendall must hate him. He wants to go to Logan, to wrap his arms around his middle and lean his forehead onto the smaller boy’s clavicle, to relive the comfort and solidarity of their childhood. But he can’t, because Logan is leaving, and Kendall knows, and they both despise James’s existence.  


  
\---

  
   
“Mom,” James says, voice breaking.

“Oh sweetie. What’s wrong?”

James tells her everything, or as much as he can without telling her that she irrevocably fucked him up at the tender age of eight or that he can spring a boner for anything with legs. He’s not into cruelty, and it isn’t the time for her to fret about his sexual identity or that he’s turning out too much like his father.

“I’m so sorry. I know you boys were close.”

Understatement of the year. James wants a hug and he’s getting an apology, and mostly it’s not helping at all. He hears his mom’s secretary in the back, trying to catch her attention. To his mom’s credit, she essentially tells her to fuck off and asks, “Do you want me to fly out there?”

“No,” James says sullenly. He does, but the thing is, it’s not like a hug from his mommy will make it all better.

“It’s not so bad. James, in a couple of years, it won’t hurt as much. Everything’s the end of the world when you’re nineteen.”

James doesn’t want to be told that. Even if his age is the reason he’s feeling things too strongly, too deeply, does it matter? It’s not going to change what he feels right this second. Full grown adults are dumb. It’s like somewhere in the process of aging they forget what it’s like to need comfort instead of inspirational advice.

Or maybe that’s just his mom.

“I’m never going to get over this,” he says, and whether the pain lessens in a few years or not, he knows that’s always going to be true. The guys have been by his side for ten years or longer, in Logan’s case. It’s like he just wasted an entire decade of his life.

“Don’t be silly. Of course you will.” His mom pauses, weighing the words. “Eventually.”

“No,” James says softly. Because really, this was all just a self fulfilling prophecy. He is relearning what his eight year old self always knew.  
He will not get over this.  
 

\---

   
Logan was never supposed to go anywhere. The two of them were going to be the kings of California. Now they are nothing. James isn’t even sure if they’re still best friends.

No. They have to be.

He watches Logan pack his suitcase, an eerie mirror of Kendall stuffing things into his duffel bag the other day. “You’re really leaving?”

“I really am.” Logan won’t look at him. Logan didn’t even have the nerve to tell James that he was going. James has waited for weeks to hear it from his best friend’s lips. It never happened. The words never came.

“Why?”

“What is there for me here, James? The band is done. We all know it. And I’ve got- school.”

“You could go to school here.” Logan’s smart. He could go to school on Mars and ace every single test.

“Why would I stay here? Because of you? You want me to skip my flight- because of you?”

He sounds like it’s the most ridiculous idea in the world. James has to clamp down on the fear that he is wrong. Logan isn’t in love with him. Logan just wants to get on with his life.

But if that were true, Logan would be able to look him in the eye instead of focusing on refolding a pair of boxers three times.

“If I said yes, would you stay?”

“Probably.”

James has to stop the word from tumbling out of his mouth. He wants Logan to stay more than anything, but.

James hurt him. James hurts people because he doesn’t want to get hurt in return. He has permanently fucked up his best friend. What  
kind of best friend does that make him? James panics. He says, “You’re going to be an amazing doctor.”

Logan doesn’t look pleased by the news.

“I hate you. I really- James, god. I _hate_ you.”

No.

“Logan-“

“I asked you to love me instead of Kendall, and you just couldn’t- why couldn’t you?” Logan is yelling. Logan never yells. James doesn’t know what to do. “I’ve been in love with you since we were kids, and Kendall’s all you can fucking see.”

What? No. That’s not- how can he think that? James fights the bile in his throat, trying to find words, trying to figure out how to tell him that’s not anything like what’s happened and Logan’s zipping up his suitcase. He’s leaving, and he’s not supposed to leave.

“Wait, Logan. _Please_.” James blocks the door. What else is he supposed to do? He’s freaking out.

“What do you want?”

James wants too many things, and all of them have to do with making Logan stay, and he doesn’t know how. He strokes the sides of Logan’s face and tries to figure out what to say. He knows that the words he chooses are going to be important. Logan is looking at him like he expects a confession, and how does James put it? How does James tell him about all the dark places that live inside of him?  
Words aren’t his thing.

James kisses Logan, and he tries to make it say everything he needs to say. In that kiss, he says _stay_ , and he says _I’m sorry_ and he says other things too, four letter words that have terrified him for his entire life.

Logan doesn’t want to listen. He shoves James away. There’s something like betrayal on his face when he walks out the door.  
 

\---

  
   
In the end, it comes down to the differences between Kendall and Logan.

It comes down to the fact that, when Logan’s gone, James misses him. Every part of him. James wants to run across America, to leave stardust shimmering at his heels as he swoops in and sweeps Logan off his feet.

But doing that? It wouldn’t be fair.

It’s not fair to ask Kendall to stay again, either. So he doesn’t. When he takes him to the airport with Carlos, Mrs. Knight, and Katie about two months after Logan’s departure, it’s not supposed to hurt. Kendall was always destined to leave. James has always known that. Isn’t that the reason he allowed him in to begin with? Because he was prepared? Because he made his heart a citadel that no brave knight could pillage?

He is not prepared.

His heart is not a citadel.

James is breaking into pieces, and he doesn’t want Kendall to go. But Kendall is well past the point where he’ll listen to anything that James says. He has steel in his eyes, and James is no longer the person that can melt it. That knowledge feels like ice inside of his bones, like an ache he’ll never be able to banish. He’s got the scent of recycled air and greasy airport burgers in his lungs, and he is paralyzed.

James resents the coldness that has come to exist between them.

It’s not like Kendall ever asked to be chosen when it mattered. Maybe that’s Kendall’s fatal flaw; he just assumed he would be. Or maybe he’s just more of a coward than anyone has ever given him credit for. It makes sense. Kendall never asks for anything because he wants to earn it. Maybe he wanted to earn James’s love.

Or maybe, James thinks, sighing, he’s just a really good friend. He knew about Logan. He knew heknewhe _knew_ , and he didn’t want to influence James’s decision. Kendall is stupid and loyal and stupidly loyal, and James can’t actually blame any of this on him.

Kendall waves to the four of from the security checkpoint, and all James can see is the same scene, mirrored back at him from the gate on the day they left for California. Today, Kendall isn’t wearing a hickey like a badge of honor. Today, Kendall isn’t even smiling.

James has this strange, abrupt thought about his rockstar mansion. It’s weird, but he can’t even remember what it was going to look like. He can’t remember who was going to sleep where, or why he’d ever thought living together with his three best friends would be the best idea in the world. In his mind, the place is an empty shell of a home, an idea of something that James was foolish for thinking that he could have.

He wants to run up to security and tell Kendall that he’s sorry. He wants to tell him that life isn’t like the movies. The hero never makes a triumphant return. The guy doesn’t always get the girl. Sometimes you run through the corridors of an airport and nothing comes of it.

Sometimes you end up alone.

James wants to tell Kendall all of those things, but he doesn’t have to.

Kendall already knows.  
 

\---

  
   
He thinks about flying back east. He decides to work on his album instead.

Gustavo has always been reluctant to give James a chance to sing on his own. And it’s not because James is difficult to market or because his vocal prowess is less with the prow and more with the ass.

It’s because he doesn’t trust him. The past few years have done a lot to solidify the bond between the band and the record producer, but Gustavo’s faith has never rested on Carlos or Logan or James’s shoulders. It’s always been Kendall carrying the burden of his trust.  
Kendall, with the fire in his eyes. Kendall, who James has driven away.

When James camps out in the middle of Rocque Records, sleeping bag and all, in an attempt to lobby himself a career, Kelly goes to bat for him. And Gustavo agrees because Kelly is terrifying and because they’ve been making music and general hijinks together for nearly four years. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s wary about the whole ordeal. James notices it every time he steps foot in the studio, when Gustavo absently searches behind him, like he expects the guys to leap out and shout _boo_.

James gets it. He does. Gustavo has trouble understanding why anyone would ever back down from a challenge, and if the past year and a half has proven anything, it’s that James is always quick to back down.

Gustavo also has trouble getting along with anyone who doesn’t blaze like a fire pushed along by the Santa Anas, consuming everything in its path. And James is good; he can smolder and prance and sing. He knows how to work a room, and he knows how to lead, but the problem is that he’s never been the kind of guy who wanted to. James has always been content to sit back and let Kendall take over, unless his fearless leader routine came in direct conflict with James’s ability to eat pie and look pretty. Or if the consequences of ignoring him far outweighed the benefits of following along, in terms of fun. It had always been pretty exciting to challenge Kendall.

James digs his fingers into his own hip, trying to shake away the memories. He’s got a new challenge now. He’s determined to prove to Gustavo that he’s capable of lighting up a stadium all on his own. He’s got to prove that he’s got his own kind of fire, a long lasting smolder and his own kind of fight that involves less recklessness but just as much determination. Gustavo may not fully trust his capabilities yet, but he’s going to. James is going to make him.

He’s going to outshine Kendall.

He’s going to be a beacon so bright that Logan won’t be able to ignore his existence. James is going to make certain that he’s a part of Logan Mitchell’s life whether he likes it or not.

After all, the only thing worse than being left is being _forgotten_.

And then, one day, he thinks, he’ll hunt Logan down.

The thing about procrastinating, though, is that it all kind of accumulates. One day blurs into the next and the next, and by the time James realizes that he’s put it off for too long for his apology to be plausible, his fear is a tidal wave. Logan’s never going to forgive him. Taking James back isn’t even an option.

So why bother trying?

James is a coward. He’s okay with that. He’s not Kendall, and he’s never claimed to be brave.  
 

\---

  
   
“It’s not a good idea.”

“It’s a great idea.”

“Carlos, you don’t understand. This is hard-“

“James, stop talking about how hard this is for you and maybe think about how hard it is for them. They were both in love with you, and you fucked them.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“You have eyes.”

“Carlos. You don’t get it.”

“So you keep telling me,” he replies dryly. “You know what, no, I don’t get it, and I’m pissed about that, okay? But you know who would get it? Logan.”

“Logan doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“You’ll never know that if you don’t man up and talk to him,” Carlos huffs.

“I don’t know if I deserve-“

“James. You’re putting out your own album. You’re making every single dream you have come true, all on your own. And you’ve earned it. You’ve earned all of it. Why on earth would love end up being the one thing you don’t deserve?” Carlos asks quietly. He makes a good  
point.

James can hear the TV in the background, blasting a Wild game. “What about Kendall?”

“Leave Kendall to me, alright?” Carlos’s voice goes all soft and fond. “I’ll take care of him. I’m good at that.”  
 

\---

  
It’s cold in the East. That’s what James is thinking, perched on the steps outside of Logan’s dorm. He’s shivering, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to figure out what to say. Words have never really been his thing.

He hears a noise like a boot scuff against pavement, the rumble of a car passing by, and when James looks up, it’s too late. He recognizes a familiar silhouette before he can actually make out the features of an even more familiar face. His lungs tighten.

He wants to kiss the curve of Logan’s lips.

This was a bad idea. This was a really awful, terrible idea.

James is pinned to the steps, unable to move, unable to run when that’s all he wants to do. Logan steps into the lamplight, his face turning golden. He looks good. College has been treating him right.

“Hi.” It’s the most eloquent thing he can think to say.

Logan doesn’t look happy to see him. He looks like someone has told him Venus is no longer a planet. “Why are you here?”

“To see you.”

“But why?”

“We’re friends.” Are they friends? James needs them to still be friends. He hasn’t talked to Logan in close to two years. He’s tried going home for Christmas, but the Mitchell’s are always off vacationing. He’s tried to catch them at Thanksgiving, but apparently they spend the holiday at Logan’s dorm.

James has tried everything, except outright visiting Logan. He’s a fan of the passive aggressive route.

“How’s Kendall?” Logan asks, a hard edge to his words.

“I don’t know. Good. I think?” James says honestly. He’s heard from Kendall once or twice, mostly through Carlos. He even saw him on a visit back home. Their conversations were stilted and awkward. James doesn’t know how to be Kendall’s friend anymore, but he’s trying. Baby steps.

“You think?” Logan sounds incredulous.

“It’s been a while since we- talked.” Logan doesn’t say anything to that. He does this half eye-roll half grimace thing that he used to do to James’s mom when she talked about getting home early from work. James sighs. “I messed up really badly, didn’t I?”

Logan stares out at the road, at the lamplight pooling on the sidewalk and the redbrick siding of the buildings surrounding them. “Do you think you messed up?”

Logan’s such a diplomat.

“I don’t know. I thought age was supposed to give you, like, clarity, but I don’t feel any older, or wiser. Not really.” Mostly James just wishes he could do things over. He’s had a lot of time to think about things like curses. He’s had a lot of time to think about where he went wrong.  
Carlos is right. James deserves things, things separate from recognition and admiration. He deserves love, and looking back on it, it’s strange to remember ever thinking he didn’t. The band was a time when James felt everything too strongly; too much, all at one time. He shouldn’t have been concentrating on all the bleak parts of his future. He should have been looking into all the ways he was going to grow up and become great. Now that he’s had some space, he can see that. James still isn’t confident in all the places he should be. He still doesn’t know if he’ll be able to hold down anything real. But…he wants to try.

He’s finally read to try.

If it’s not too late.

“Me neither.”

“Logan, I never meant for you to think I didn’t want you. When we were kids, I wanted you. When the band was still together, I wanted you. Now-” James wonders if it’s fair to finish that sentence.

Logan won’t look at him. “That’s not what it felt like.”

“I know. I was an ass. I won’t lie. I wanted Kendall too. I hated that I was hurting you, but- This is going to sound really stupid.”

“Say it.”

“Logan, I didn’t want to lose you. Love makes things messy and complicated, and you’ve been my best friend since forever. I’ve always, always cared about you, dude. More than I should.”  

Love is messy and complicated. It is soap bubbles and a rubbery ducky, his mother’s tears shining like diamonds on her cheekbones. Love is his dad, shacked up in a house with a new family, a James sized hole in the middle of every family photo. It’s the way his dad and his stepmom look at him when they say he belongs, and the pang of guilt in his heart for betraying his mom every time James allows himself to feel like he might. Love is a boy who is sunshine and hope and a vague, aching sense of loss over the smell of maple syrup.

Love is so many things, and all of them are sharp, and all of them hurt, and James wants to protect Logan’s skin from breaking. That’s what the noble part of him thinks. The smaller, weaker bits think that he was just trying to hide. He’s never wanted Logan to see all the places beneath his flesh where he is already bleeding and bruised.

“Then why?” Logan asks. He sounds wounded.

“Kendall,” James says, because he needs to be honest. He spent so much time arguing his way out of what he felt for Kendall that he was never quite able to admit it was real and honest in its own way. He allowed himself to care too deeply for them both, and he hated himself for it. “Do you think I wanted to fuck up this badly? Do you think I went into this thinking, oh, let’s screw over my best friend in the entire world?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

Logan has to know how he feels. James’s mind races back over every time he’s ever interacted with the kid, over every kiss they’ve shared, and every word that he can remember.

“Think that I loved you _both_. Fuck, man. I just- No matter who I chose to be with, it would end. One of you would leave me. I thought being with Kendall was the easier choice. The smarter choice. No feelings. No strings. The only person who’d get screwed over when he decided to end it would be me. It wouldn’t ruin our friendship the way being with you inevitably would. That’s what I thought. Until you left.”  
“Why would you think us being together would end badly? Why did you think I would ever leave you, James?”

“Because that’s what people do. They leave, okay? You _left_.” James covers his eyes with his hands, trying to quell his temper. “Which is my fault. Look, I can’t apologize for the way I felt about Kendall. I want to, but it wouldn’t be honest. But Logan, I am so sorry for the way I treated you. I’m sorry I let you walk away without letting you know that you were important, too.”

“Just not as much as Kendall.”

“No. You’re every bit as important as he is. Was. Whatever. Just- in a different way. And I know that’s not what you want- wanted? I wasn’t fair to you.”

“James.” Logan runs his fingers over the edge of the step they’re sitting on. There are inches between them. “It’s not like you could have controlled it, somehow. We don’t get to choose who we want to be with.”

That sounds too fatalistic for the way James wants this conversation to go.

“Yeah, but- do you remember the first time we- uh. The night your grandma died?”

“Yes.”

“That was my first time. Doing something like that. With a guy.” Or anyone, but James needs to hang onto one secret, just in case this doesn’t work out. “Before you, I never wanted to. So- you’re important, okay? Believe me.”

Logan is looking at him like he’s not sure he knows what to believe. James meets his gaze and thinks of his mother. _Our family is cursed_ , she told him, but that isn’t true. James thinks they brought the curse on themselves, by refusing to believe in other people.

James wants to believe. He needs to. He takes a deep breath and says, “If it’s okay- I want to try again.”

“What changed?”

“What?” That’s not the question he expected. Logan is always topping his expectations.

“Do you still think I’ll leave?”

Ah.

Of course he does.

But how does he say out loud that living without Logan these past few years because he didn’t have enough courage is worse than being left after giving it his all? How does he say that he didn’t trust him before, but he’s willing to now?

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve changed, I think. Without you guys around…I’m braver now. I want to try to be braver.”

Logan’s lips press together. “Do you think second chances are really possible?”

“God, I hope so. But I’m not sure. I do know that- the person I was back then wasn’t right. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

He was a wreck of a boy who ruined people. Now he is a ruin of a boy who wants, more than anything, a chance to be wrecked.

“And the person you are now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m right for you. I feel like a cautionary tale: Don’t grow up and slut around, kids. You’ll end up miserable and alone.”

“Hey. You’re not alone.” Logan grabs his hand, offering him a weak smile. James feels the spark of an ember in his heart, the distant call of thunder in the distance.

Maybe.

“I thought you _hated_ me.” James has fought with that confession day after day, struggled to keep it from killing him.

“I do. I mean. I do, but- not really. I can’t hate you as much as I want to.”

James doesn’t want to give him time to think about it. He says, “I don’t know if I’m right for anyone. But I want to try.”

 _Please_ , he begs silently. _Please let us try_.

“If- you really want to. Be together, I mean. We could- It can’t be like last time. It’s- you’ve got to prove it to me.”

James squeezes his eyes shut. Hope is dangerous. “And how do I do that, Logan?”

“I don’t know. But you need to figure it out. And if you do- okay. _Okay_.”

There’s this long stretch of silence between them, like time has gone still. Logan is looking at him now; not at the redbrick or the lamplight or the odd star peeking out in the sky. James has all of Logan’s attention, just like when they were little and nothing mattered but each other. He asks, “Are you serious?”

“I’m terrified. So yeah. I’m serious.”

James wants to tell Logan all the things he thought in 2J the day Logan left for the airport. He wants to tell him _stay_ and _I’m sorry_ and _be mine_ and _I love you_. But he won’t force it on him. Not this time.

“Logan, can I kiss you?”

He holds his breath and waits for an answer. In the stillness, James’s mother’s voice is a whisper on the wind, “ _Maybe it’s better not to love anyone at all._ ”

Silently, James thinks, _no_.

Love is messy and complicated, but it is also a person who understands, who you can sit in silence with and hold hands with and lie on sun-warm rocks with; a person who all the while still makes the world come alive.

Logan nods, shy but hopeful, and James thinks:

Love is worth it.

 


End file.
